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CREDENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY. 


‘CREDENTIALS 


OF 


CHO Sha aN ie 


vy & COURSE: OF LECTURES 


DELIVERED AT THE REQUEST OF THE\ 


rere ai EVIDENCE SOCIETY: 


WITH A PREFACE BY 


THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 


THE, EARL OF HARROWBY, KG. 


Ae Pork: 
T. WHITTAKER; 
No, 2, BIBLE HOUSE. 


MDCCCLXXVI, 


PREFACE, 


I HAVE been requested by the Committee of the 
Christian Evidence Society not to allow this, the 
fifth volume of Lectures on Christian Evidence 
which have appeared under their auspices, to go 
forth without a few words of preface from their 
Chairman. 

I bow to their request, though feeling most un- 
feignedly my incompetence for assuming such a 
position, — 

The volumes which have preceded the present 
series have had a wide circulation, and met with 
much acceptance; and it is hoped they have not 
been without profit to many, They were, like the 
present, the offering of eminent men, devoted 
to a holy cause: aware of the difficulties of the 
time, and willing to give the help of their abilities 
and knowledge towards their removal. They were 


conceived, not in the too often bitter spirit of 


iv PREFACE. 


mere polemical controversy, but in the spirit of love 
—in the desire to remove stumbling-blocks out of the 
way of perplexed and anxious enquirers after truth 
in the most important problems of our life. 

The volume which is now presented is conceived 
in the same spirit. 

May it have, under God’s blessing, the same 
success ! , 

May I be permitted to say, that much of such 


success—again, under God’s blessing—must depend 


upon these Lectures being read in the same spirit in 
which they were written: not, as was. said before, in 
that of mere polemical controversy, but that of an 
earnest search after truth, (truth of the highest and 
most momentous value,) and with a real desire to be 
enlightened and assisted in the search. 

Without this real and earnest desire, indeed, no real 
search can be pursued, no real satisfaction can be 
hoped for. This is the essential difficulty to be encoun- 
tered: to get the mind of the enquirers into a condi- 
tion, not only to enter upon—though this is difficult 
enough—but still more to pursue, the enquiry earnestly, 
Any frivolous mind, any shallow character, any 
merely disputatious spirit, is capable of receiving a 


doubt even when there exists no previous prejudice, 


PREFACE. : v 


—~ 


no secret desire to entertain it: but how few are 
there in comparison, who, feeling that on such a sub- 
ject doubt is unsafe, and indeed intolerable until every 
effort has been made to remove it, will devote days 
and nights, if necessary, to the study of the questions 
which have been raised—whether they concern 
criticism on the Sacred Records, or the researches 
of physical science, or metaphysical speculations ! 
On all these subjects, doubts and difficulties are 
easy enough to raise. A patient and earnest mind 
is required to entertain and master the solution. 

In illustration of the state of mind intended, may 
be cited the well-known, though often misquoted > 
words of Tennyson in the “In Memoriam,” in which 
he describes how his friend, though at one time vexed 
with the darkness of doubt, never rested till he had 


won his way patiently and earnestly to the light :— 


“ One indeed I knew, 
In many a subtle question versed, 
Who touched a jarring lyre at first, 
But ever strove to make it true : 


‘‘ Perplexed in faith, but pure in deeds, 
At last he beat his music out. 
There lives more faith in honest doubt,. 
Believe me, than in half the creeds. 


vi PREFACE, 


a le 


“ He fought his doubts and gathered strength, 
He would not make his judgment blind, 
He faced the spectres of the mind 
And laid them: thus he came at length 


“To find a stronger faith his own.” 


If the reader will but apply this earnest spirit 
to the perusal of the following Lectures, I cannot but 
hope that they will tend, not only to quiet doubt 
and remove difficulties, and thus to strengthen faith, 
—but, the careful reading of the Holy Scriptures 
themselves not neglected, to kindle and confirm an — 
active, healthy, and fruitful piety; without which 
where is the guide in life ?—where is the consolation 
in the contemplation of its end? May God bless the 
work! 


HARROWBY. 


- OFFICE OF THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCE SOCIETY, 
2, DUKE STREET, ADELPHI, 
LoNpoN, W.C.,, 
Nov. 1875. 


CON EAN: FS: 


THE EVIDENCES FOR THE INSPIRATION /OF HOLY 


SCRIPTURE. q : a aie : ; 
BY THE RIGHT REV. Lorp BiIsHop OF CARLISLE. 


THE EVIDENCE TO THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY SUP- 


PLIED BY PROPHECY ‘ : : : ; 
By WiLiiamM LinpsAy ALEXANDER, D.D., F.R.S.E. 


THE POSITIVE EVIDENCE IN PROOF OF THE HISTORICAL 
TRUTH OF THE MIRACLES. OF THE NEW TESTA- 
MENT ° ° oe ° e e ° ° 


By THE Rev. C. A. Row, M.A., Prebendary of St. Paul’s. 


THE ADAPTATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO THE REQUIRE- 

MENTS OF HUMAN SOCIETY ° . ; . 

By ALFRED Barry, D.D., D.C.L., Principal of King’s 

College, London, Canon of Worcester, and Honorary 
Chaplain to the Queen. | 


Page 


La! 


41 


85 


143 


CONTENTS. 


viil 
is 


_ Page 
THE EVIDENCE TO CHRISTIANITY ARISING FROM ITS 
ADAPTATION TO ALL THE DEEPER WANTS OF 


THE HUMAN HEART : : . ‘ . TSE 
% 


sy THE Rev. Perer Lorimer, D.D., Professor of Theology 
in the English Presbyterian College, London. 


THE ADEQUACY OF THE CHRISTIAN ANSWER TO ALL 


DEEPER QUESTIONS , : 5 : ‘ 228 


By THE Lorp BisHop of GLOUCESTER AND BRISTOL. 
regen) ve [; ; a Bay . ri 


THE EVIDENCES FOR THE INSPIRATION 
HOLY SCRIPTURE, 


BY THE 


RIGHT REV. LORD BISHOP OF CARLISLE. 


OF 


alee eed 


os 


S 


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pt, 


& 
aR NST: 
ae 
» 


THE EVIDENCES FOR THE INSPIRATION. OF- 
HOLY SCRIPTURE. 


HE subject which I have undertaken to treat in’ 
this lecture is of vast extent and difficulty, and 
one which can only be dealt with in an oral address 
of reasonable duration by omitting a great deal of 
that which might be adduced, and by restricting the 
thoughts of my hearers to somewhat narrow lines. | 
Moreover, there are few subjects which have been 
more—and more earnestly— discussed of late years. 
The literature which has resulted is abundant; and it 
would be easy to refer you to works in which the 
Inspiration of Holy Scripture has been treated in 
divers ways. There is, for example, Dr. Lee’s elabo- 
rate work, in which you will find reference to most of 
the important writers on the question, whether ancient 
or modern, German or English, and an examination 
of the various theories of Inspiration, together with a 
vast body of learning and discussion. Again, there is 
a book of a very different kind—Coleridge’s “ Confes- 
sions of an Inquiring Spirtt,’—which, whether we are 
3 


~ THE EVIDENCES (POR THE *- 


thoroughly satisfied with its conclusions or not, must, 
I think, be regarded as marking a distinct epoch in 
the history of English thought upon the subject. 
And, once more, there is the compact essay by the 
Bishop of Winchester in the volume entitled “ Aids 
to Faith,”—which, like all that comes from that 
prelate’s pen, is learned and thoughtful, and marked 
by moderation and fairness. These are only a few of 
the treatises which are ready to hand, and in which, 
without going further, any one may find abundance 
of argument of many kinds on the great subject which 
we have in hand to-day. I ask myself, therefore, 
with some anxiety, How can I treat the subject so as 
to make it worth while for me to speak, and for you 
to listen ? What shall be the special character of 
this lecture, which shall establish for it a reasonable 
claim to existence in addition to the abundant 
literature which exists already ? : 

It seems to me that my only hope of answering 
these questions successfully is to be found in the 
endeavour to put before you some view of the subject, 
which, without pretending to be the only view, or 
even the principal view, shall yet be a true one, and 
one which I can experimentally recommend as having 
appeared valuable to myself. I say experimentally 
recommend, because this is emphatically the ground 
“upon which I wish to stand while addressing you. 
The question of the Inspiration of Holy Scripture iS 
one which comes too near that of the springs of our 

: 


INSPIRATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 


= 


spiritual life, and the communion of our souls with 
God, to permit us to treat it simply as one of the 
problems which human ingenuity has devised for the- ; 
amusement of those who have a taste for such things ; 
and I, for one, would not waste either my time or 
yours in discussing it, if I did not believe it to be 
possible that a candid examination, and a presentation 
of the manner in which it has exhibited itself to one 
mind, might, by God’s mercy, be of use to others, 
which have felt the difficulty of the problem, -and 
tried to solve it. 

I begin, then, with a proposition which may seem 
to you strange, and perhaps, with reference to the 
purpose of this lecture, somewhat alarming ; but which, 
nevertheless, it is important to premise as ‘intro- 
ductory to that. particular view of the subject which 
I wish to place before you. The proposition is this : 
that the theorem expressed by these words, The Bible 
1s inspired, is incapable of logical proof. 

You will observe that it does not follow, that, 
because a theorem is incapable of proof, therefore it 
is not true. Many of the profoundest philosophers 
have questioned whether the being of God is capable 
‘of proof, and whether every suggested or supposed 
proof does not, when examined, turn out to involve 
_a petitio principit. So also the existence of an ex- 
ternal world, the existence of phenomena outside the 
perceiving mind, is well known to be as difficult to 
prove by formal demonstration as it is difficult prac- 

5 


/ 
LHE EVIDENCES: FOR, THE 


tically to disbelieve. And it is certain that in mathe-— 
matical subjects the primary propositions are not 
unfrequently (to say the least) very difficult of proof ; 
and the Differential Calculus had been for many 
years a practical weapon in the hands of mathe- 
maticians, before the logical basis of its fundamental 
principles had ceased to~ be the subject of lively 
- controversy. 

Hence there is nothing very frightful, after all, in 
saying that the theorem, Zhe Bible is inspired, is in- 
capable of logical proof: and if it be true that this is 
so, then the recognition of the impossibility of dealing 
with the question in this form may be of use in 
directing our minds to possible and therefore more 
hopeful methods of treatment. 

Now, in the sentence 7 he Bible ts inspired, what gram- 
marians call the subject—viz.,the Bible—is capable 
of very simple and complete definition. “ The first 
_ simple collective title of the whole Bible,” as Professor 
Westcott tells us, “appears to be that which is found 
in Jerome in the fourth century, ‘The Divine Library’ 
(Libliotheca Divina), which afterwards passed into 
common use among Latin writers, and thence into our 
own Anglo-Saxon language. About the same time 
Greek writers came to use the term ‘The Books’ 
(Lzbita, pl.) for the Bible. In process of time this . 
name, with many others of Greek origin, passed into 
the vocabulary of the Western Church; and in the 
thirteenth century, by a happy solecism, the neuter 

| 6 | 


\ 


INSPIRATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 


plural came to be regarded as a feminine singular, 
and ‘ The Books’ became by common consent ‘The 
Book’ (Biblia, sing.), in which form the word has 
passed into the languages of modern Europe.” * 

There is no doubt, therefore, as to what we mean by 
the Bible : there may, perhaps, be some little difficulty 
about those books which we call apocryphal—in fact, 
a greater difficulty than those who simply cast them 
out. of the Sacred Volume without mercy are ap- 
parently able to appreciate; but the difficulty, 
whatever be its magnitude, is one which I do not 
intend to stir up just now; and I am content to take 
the Bible to mean, in the language of our sixth 
~ Article, “ those canonical books of the Old and New 
Testament, of whose authority was never any doubt 
in the Church,” and which collection of canonical 
books is sold in the English translation in thousands 
and thousands of copies every year, all the world 
over. | 

The subject, “the Bible,” then, is easily and com- 
pletely defined; but the predicate, “inspired,” does 
not admit of by any means so easy a definition. The 
word zuspired is manifestly a figurative expression ; 
and the difficulty is, when we endeavour to go beyond 
the figure and to get at the fact, to say what the fact 
is. Of course, it is easy to use other language, which 
may be more or less equivalent in meaning, and which 
may express to devout souls all that they wish to 

* «The Bible in the Church,” p. 6. 
7 


THE EVIDENCES FOR THE 


know: as, for example, I may say that by speaking 
of the Bible as inspired I mean that it is the work of 
the Spirit of God; but then, inasmuch as men wrote 
it, it is clear that we only shift the difficulty from the 
book to the men, and we have to explain what is 
meant by writing under the movement of the Spirit 
of God. Or we may put aside the human agent alto- 
gether, and simply speak of the Bible as the Word of 
God, the utterance of His Spirit, and so forth; and 
for purposes of devotion and practical godliness any 
such description may be sufficient. But when we 
endeavour to move the question out of the court of 
pious feeling into that of scientific definition, we are 
met by this insuperable difficulty, that we are predi- 
cating concerning the Bible a certain quality which 
would cease to be what it is if it could be found in 
existence anywhere else. If I say, “ This rose is red,” 
and you ask me what.I mean, I can show you a part 
of the solar spectrum which is described by scientific 
men as ved; and I can say, I mean that the colour of 
this rose and the colour of this portion of the solar 
spectrum produce the same effect upon an ordinary 
humaneye. And in fact, when you assert any quality 
of anything, you mean that the thing in question 
agrees with respect to that quality with some standard 
which you can produce. But with regard to the in- 
spiration of the Bible, it is manifest that no such test 
can be applied, because whatever we mean by the 


predicate zzspirved, at least we mean this—that it is 
8 ; 


~~ 


~ 


; INSPIRATION OF HOLY®SCRIPTURE. 


something that can be predicated of no other book ; 
the moment you predicate it of any other book, you 
evacuate it of the very attribute which constitutes its . 
value. So far as Holy Scripture is historical, you can 
compare it with the works of a certain class of writers 
who have composed histories - so far as it is poetical, 
you can compare it with the works of another class 
who have written poetry ; and you may bring it into 
comparison with other books as regards sublimity, or 
clearness, or other qualities which attach to good 
books: but so far as it is zzspired, it stands removed 
in kind from all others ; and therefore it would seem 
that no scientific definition of inspiration can possibly 
be given, and consequently that it is impossible to 
demonstrate logically that “ the Bible is inspired.” 
The result of this admission—in which, at all events, 
for argument’s sake, I will assume that I have carried 
you with me—is this: that, instead of attempting to 
demonstrate that the Bible has a certain quality which 
I cannot define, and therefore cannot properly deal 
- with, I shall begin at the other end, and examine in 
what ways the Bible stands apart from other books. 
‘Inspiration certainly, as I have already said, implies 
something which is unique; if, therefore, I take a 
survey of the Bible, and observe in what respects it 
transcends other books, it may be that I shall be led 
to discern in it qualities so godlike and transcendent, 
that I shall feel that the best description of the. whole 
is this—that it is emphatically the Book of God : just as 
9 


THE EVIDENCES FOR THE 


Saul was seen to be the man upon whom God's Spirit | 
rested to make him king over Israel, because ‘he was 
taller by head and shoulders than all his brethren. 

But here let me interpolate a few remarks as to the 
class of minds, to which the discussion now proposed 
is chiefly directed. 

I apprehend that there must necessarily be ‘three 

conditions of mind in relation to this question. 
_ First, there is the condition of perfect acquiescence 
in a belief concerning the Inspiration of Holy Scrip- 
~ ture, which I should be most unwilling to disturb. To 
have a more or less scientific persuasion upon this and 
upon many. other subjects, is by no means necessary 
for universal happiness or universal holiness. Many 
thousands of good men and women live upon the 
truth that the Bible is the Word of God without ever 
‘being troubled by considering what the proposition 
means, or being capable in any degree of discussing 
the proposition. Just as thousands of good men and 
women live upon the truth that the sun will rise in the 
morning, without having the smallest knowledge of 
the mechanical principles upon which the rising of the 
sun depend. | 

Then secondly, and in marked contrast with the 
class to which I have just referred, are those who 
utterly reject the notion of inspiration. This denial 
may take place upon many grounds, but it is not my 
business to discuss them. I would only remark that 


independently of atheism, which of course extinguishes - 
10 


INSPIRATION OF HOLY. SCRIPTURE. 


all possibility of inspiration, there may be a denial of 
this attribute of Holy Scripture, depending upon a 
tone of thought which is common enough just now ; 
I mean that tone of thought which takes an entirely 
material and mechanical view of the universe, and 
which excludes the thought of a personal God as the 
intelligent Governor of all. I conceive that the full 
acceptance of this view of the universe must negative 
absolutely the notion of inspiration ; and it is just 
because this is so, and because this materialistic view 
seems to me so painfully unsatisfactory and so un- 
worthy of adoption, that I should be glad to press the 
inspired character of the Bible as an independent 
argument against the materialistic theory, and in 
favour of belief in a personal God, or rather, of belief 
_ ih a Father who is in Heaven. 

; And, thirdly, there are those who halt between 
two opinions, and whose lives are harassed by doubts. 
. I should imagine that this condition of mind was very 
common in our own times; but whether common or 
not, it is the condition which I have before me very 
principally in this lecture. An argument for the 
inspiration of Holy Scripture seems to me to be 
in a certain sense valuable to the man of implicit 
faith, because he cannot tell how soon that faith 
may be shaken, and experience shows that men 
of this class ‘sometimes fall on a sudden, as _ it 
were, into the extremest scepticism : such an argu- 


ment may possibly, though I think not probably, 
II ie 


THE EVIDENCES FOR THE 


be useful to the second of the three classes of mind ~ 


-which I have enumerated—namely, to those who 
have adopted some theory concerning the construc- 


tion or government of the universe, which by neces- 


sary consequence negatives the idea of an inspired 
book: -but the argument is chiefly useful to those 
who on moral and religious grounds hail the con- 


ception—probably the conception of their childhood — 


—implied by such a phrase as “the Word of God,” 
and who yet cannot honestly shut their eyes to the 
difficulties which the conception involves; or who 
have been puzzled by the difficulties, which have 
been imported into the subject by the connection 
which some teachers have represented as existing 
between the grand conception of an inspired Word, 
and certain particular and petty theories as to the 
nature and limits of the assumed inspiration. I 
figure to myself the mental condition of a man, 
who doubts concerning the inspiration of Holy 
Scripture, as being like that of a man who is in 
possession of an estate, in the title to which he 
imagines that he has discovered some fatal flaw. 
The condition of this man stands out in contrast 
with that of him who has no doubt that his title 
is good, and with that of him who has no doubt 
that his title is bad, much as the condition of the 
man who is anxious upon the question of inspira- 
tion stands out in contrast with that of the man 
of unhesitating faith on the one side and that of 
12 


Pure 


ore is 
vif =e Sar Ro 
Fe eh ee ee Noel 


119 ie Saat 


eae 


Sage alata 
abe de le. ae 
pon cae 


INSPIRATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 


the man who has made shipwreck of his faith on 
- the other; and the mental result in the case of 
the man, who is doubtful concerning his title, may 
illustrate that of him, who fears that he has found Ss 
a flaw in his spiritual title to the possession of a 
book which he can call “the Word of God.” His 
interest in the estate is very much gone; he cannot 
work upon it, and plant it, and improve it, and 
enjoy it, as he did when he was sure that it was 
his-own; he looks back with regret to the days 
when he was ignorant of the secret, which he fears 
that he has discovered; he will owe a debt of 
gratitude. to any one, who can give him good 
reason to believe that the-flaw is not real, and 
that his title to the estate is sound. 

All this being so, I venture, with humble trust 
that I may be assisted by that Spirit, whose opera- 
tion in one special department is the subject of this 
lecture, to approach the question as follows. 

I put on one side all consideration of special 
theories of inspiration,—I may have. a few words 
to say upon them hereafter, but I entirely dismiss 
them, one and all, for the present,—and I ask, Is 
there good reason to believe that the Creator of 
the universe, whose existence I shall assume, has 
made a special Revelation of Himself to mankind, 
and that what we call-the Bible is the vehicle of 
this Revelation ? 

The question thus put appears to me to contain 

’ 13 


THE EVIDENCES FOR THE 


the pith and marrow of the whole subject. Grant ~ 


that there is a personal God, who regards men 
with an infinite degree of that kindly and personal 
and fatherly interest, the meaning and existence 
of which we know from our own human ex- 
perience; and then the question necessarily arises, 
Has any spiritual communication passed between 
them? has it been such a communication as is 
capable of being expressed in human words? and 
if so, does the volume which we call the Bible 
contain that communication ? 


In order to put ourselves in a position to answer 


these questions satisfactorily, I make the following 
observations concerning the Bible :— | 
1. In the first place, and to take the broadest 
and most general view, it is absolutely impossible 
to deny that the Bible occupies a unique position 
with regard to mankind. I do not say that the 
Bible is the only volume which professes to contain 
sacred’ writings, because undoubtedly this is not 
so; but certainly the Bible is bound up with the 
progress and civilization of the world in a manner 
in which no other book is: civilization and the 
Bible are almost co-extensive with regard to terri- 
tory; and if there de a book which contains a 
special message from God, I presume that few will 
be found to argue in favour of any book except the 
Bible. : 
It is some advantage to have advanced even as tar 
14 


elaine 


INSPIRATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 


as this. If there were some half a dozen or more 
books which came before us competing for places in 
our esteem, and if we had carefully to examine the 
claims of each and then to award a prize, the case 
would be different. But as Paley argues with regard 
to religions, so we may argue with regard to books: 
Paley remarks concerning Christianity, that it is either 
Christianity or no religion at all; or that at least no 
one, with whom he would be ieely to have to do, would 
support the cause of any other religion: and sO we 
may certainly say concerning the Bible as claiming to | 
be a divine book : it is either this book or none; for 
certainly no one, with whom we are likely to have to 
do, will support the cause of any other book,—will not 
do so, at least, except as passing a universal negative 
upon all books, and arguing that a book revelation is 
a thing impossible in itself. This destructive course of 
‘argument is possible, and has sometimes been taken ‘ 
and if taken and adhered to, all other argument, is 
precluded ; but once admit the possibility of a divine 
book, and then the claims of the Bible to be that 
book must be admitted on all hands to be absolutely 
unrivalled. 

For it is a simple matter of fact, that wherever you 
_ find nations» rising to what we call the highest places 
in civilization, the Bible and the truths contained in it 
are to be found likewise, Christian nations have for a 
_ long time been, are, and seem likely to continue, upper- 
most in the struggle for existence and for improve- 

T5 


THE EVIDENCES FOR THE 


_ 


ment: unchristian nations have found this out, and 
own it; and though they may not become Christian 
themselves, still they in a certain manner do homage 
to the name which Christian nations bear; and if the 
name of Christian be now synonymous with that which 
is highest in civilization and moral power, you cannot 
separate this elevation from the character of the book, 

upon which all Christians stand as upon a common 
ground, and which they regard as the charter of their 
common faith. 

- Iam aware of all the drawbacks which have to be 
made with regard to such a picture as that which I 
have now drawn. I know that it may be said that the 
progress of the Western nations depends upon other 
things—upon blood, upon race, upon physical and 
cerebral attributes, and so forth; and I know also 
that it is easy to show that men do in practice very 
much neglect the rules and principles which the Bible 
contains ; that they do not act upon it, and make it 

their rule of life. But still you cannot get over the 

fact, that somehow the history of the modern world is | 
more bound up with the Bible and its contents than 
with any other book or thing whatever: take the Bible 
away, and the modern world could not have existed ; 
whatever else it may be, certainly the Bible is the 
book of modern civilization, and that which is chiefly 
bound up with the improvement of our race. Of what 
other book could such an assertion be made, with the 


faintest appearance of truth? Could we say it of 
~ 16 . 


INSPIRATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 


Homer? or of Plato? or of Cicero? or of any one 
book by which the mind of mankind has been in- 
fluenced or trained? Does not the mere suggestion 
exhibit its own absurdity? and is it not therefore 
plain that the Bible has played a part in history 
which is different in kind, as well as in degree, 
from that played by any other book? is not. its 
position with regard to moral influence upon 
mankind absolutely, and (so to speak) infinitely, 
unique ? : 

2. But the position of the Bible with regard to 
civilization and influence upon human history becomes 
very much more remarkable, if we regard it in connec- 
tion with the fact which has already been incidentally 
mentioned—namely, that the Bible is in reality not a 
book, but a collection of books, belonging to different 
times and different languages. The power of a good 
book, which Milton has described so eloquently in one 
of the most eloquent passages of English prose, is 
undoubted and unending; and one can conceive a 
man who would desire to be the teacher of mankind, 
—a Socrates, a Plato, a Confucius, a Bacon,—-sitting 
down for the express purpose of writing a book, which 
should be a complete guide to the moral and religious 
nature of mankind ; and one can conceive such an 
effort proving more or less successful : in fact, it wou!d 
not be difficult to name books which are in a remark- 
able manner bound up with the moral development of 
mankind, and the cause of truth and true religion will 

17 c 


THE EVIDENCES FOR THE 


not gain by any attempt to depreciate them ; but 
what I am wishing to point out now, with respect to 
Holy Scripture, is this: that its case is totally different 
from that of any supposed book written by some 
philosopher for the edification of mankind. If there 


be one idea running through it, it cannot bea human _ 


idea, because the book has no one human author, nor 
even one human editor ; it has not even the advantage 
which a volume would have, that contained the wise 
sayings of wise men of various ages and countries, 
collected by some one who wished to gather together 
into a focus the light of the total wisdom of mankind ; 
on the other hand, it is somewhat like what geologists 
call a conglomerate rock,—composed of the most hetero- 
geneous elements, brought together no one knows how, 
and reduced to unity by some process of fusion which 
human ingenuity cannot explain. 

Nay,—to pursue this thought a little further, we 
find that our conglomerate book is composed not 
merély of heterogeneous, but apparently of positively 
conflicting elements. Take the great division of the 
book into Testaments. The Old Testament is a 
collection of Hebrew books, extending in composition 
over several centuries; and these, taken together, 
constitute the sacred books of a certain people and a 
certain Church. The New Testament isa collection of 
Greek books, which are separated as to the period of 
their composition by some centuries from the former, 


and which not only do not constitute a portion of the 
¥ 18 


INSPIRATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 


sacred books of this same people and Church, but 
belong to a Church opposed and hated by the former 


‘in the most intense and bitter manner. He who is 


. the hero (so to speak with reverence) of the New | 
Testament, is the man whom the possessors and 
guardians of the Old Testament persecuted and 
killed ; but the nation which did this annihilated 
itself (as it were) in the process; at all events, it 
passed away as a nation, its city and Temple perished, 
its worship came to an end; and then those who ac- 
cepted the New Testament, instead of destroying the 
Old, which contained the religion of their persecutors, 
adopted it, bound it up with their own book, said that 
they were in fact only one—that one could not be 
understood without the other; and they became as 
jealous for the honour of the Old Testament as they 
naturally were for the honour of the New. 

Now, I say that this is a very strange history of the 
composition of any book ; if, having such a History, 
it really has a perceptible unity of purpose, and if | 
it can be shown that one idea runs through it, this 
demonstrated unity is little, if at all, short of miracu- 
lous ; and, as I have already noted, it cannot be a 
unity which has been put into it by man, for there is 
no man who conceivably can have done it; accident 
it seems ridiculous to talk about : the only remaining 
solution would seem to be that the unity is Divine, 
and that so, in a very intelligible sense, it may be 
considered as God’s Book, or as the Word of God. 

IOs 


THE EVIDENCES FOR THE 


3. It may be worth while to press a little further 
-the argument depending iipon the heterogeneous 
character of the material out of which the Sacred 
Volume is constructed, by calling attention to the 
actual nature of this material. I have already 
ventured to use a geological phrase; and really the 
phenomena of the superposition of the rocks, which 
form the crust of our globe, are a:very admirable 
illustration of the superposition of books which con- 
stitute our Bible. Lowest of all lies the book of 
Genesis; and the formation of it seems to puzzle 
human ingenuity, much as that of the rocks does. 
It seems to contain the d¢bris of some older com- 
position still. It is history, but very different from 
ordinary history ; it carries us back to a beginning 
which science cannot reach, and in which all is merged 
in the revelation of a creative Word ; and it brings us 
through strange tales of human sin against a Divine 
will, and terrible consequences of that sin, and of 
intercourse between man and God, until it ends with 
a touching history of family life, which, as a mere 
work of literary art, never has been and never will be 
surpassed, 

Thus we gradually come to more regular histories ; 
and we have a number of books, which tell us of the 
ups and downs of the family which God is said to 
have chosen for Himself. Iam not, of course, going 
to discuss all the historical. books ; but I cannot pass 
them by without making this remark: that while in 

20 


INSPIRATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 


many respects they are like other books, the histories 
which they contain differ from other histories in 
representing a Divine Person, who claims to be the 
One God of heaven and earth, as directing all that 
takes place. I am not saying that there may not be 
difficulties connected with some of the alleged words 
and doings of this Divine Person ; but still, taking a 
general view, this is ¢ke point which differences the 
history of which I am speaking from all other,— 
namely, that everything is represented as taking 
place under God’s guidance, and as being what it is 
because He wills it so to be. However, to say 
nothing more just now upon this point, we have in 
the beginning of the Old Testament a number of 
historical books; their composition clearly extends 
over many years (no one would venture to suggest 
that the early part of Genesis and the Books of Kings 
belonged to the same epoch of literature) ; and the au- 
thors are many—it may be doubtful how many,—but 
they are all connected by this common characteristic, 
that they are historians of the seed of Abraham. 

But the Old Testament is,as we know, by no means 
exclusively historical : it contains poems, for example. 
The Psalms must be acknowledged to stand high in 
the poetical literature of the world: it matters not 
for my present purpose to inquire what authors 
contributed them, nor when they were composed ;- 
but I will just observe, with reference to my general 
argument, that it should be borne in mind that these 

21 


a 


THE EVIDENCES: FOR: THE 


Psalms have had place in the daily devotion of the 
Christian Church from the beginning, and no doubt. 
_ will hold that place to the end of time. 
Prophecy is another element of the Old Testament 
books. I am not going to assume the reality of the 
prophetic gift: I only assume that the Bible contains | 
books, which are prophetic in form, and which profess 
to direct the eyes of readers to distant events, and 
specially to a distant Person, in whose days great 
changes are to be effected and great things done. 
And, besides history and poetry and prophecy, there 
are some few other books which may well be classed 
apart: there is such a book as that of Job, which 
seems to be both poetical and moral; and there is 
one book, which we may describe as a love-song, but 
which, when we examine it in the light of the 
notices given in our ordinary English Bibles, we find 
expounded by such chapter-headings as these: “ The 
Church’s love unto Christ. She confesseth her de- 
formity, and prayeth to be directed to His flock. 
Christ directeth her to the shepherds’ tents, and 
showing His love to her, giveth her gracious promises, 
The Church and Christ congratulate one another.” 
A book like this—so strange, so hard, and yet so 
beautiful—is, to recur once more to geological lan- 
guage, like a trap rock, which cuts through all the 
regular deposits, and exhibits itself above them all, 
to the astonishment of observers. : 
Thus curiously various are the constituents of the : 
22 


~INSPIRATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 


first volume of our sacred book; and when it suddenly 
comes to an end, it is (as it were) with a fingerpost 
to point across the waste, which separates it from the 
almost equally heterogeneous collection of writings 
which we call the New Testament. Here again we 
begin with history; but the history is not exactly 
such as we might have expected. We have four 
histories, evidently very distinct, and yet evidently 
closely connected together, of one man: that there may 
be discrepancies amongst them—irreconcileable dis- 
crepancies, if you please—it is no part of my business 
to deny ; but what I affirm, without fear of contradic- 
tion from the most sceptical, is this: that these four 
histories are pictures of the life and death of an actual 
man, whose name was Jesus, and who lived and was 
crucified in Palestine some eighteen centuries anda 
half ago. It is curious, looking at the matter from a 
merely human point of view, that we should have had 
four histories, and no more; the fact that there exist 
a considerable number of what are called apocryphal 
~ Gospels, and the strange and infinite difference between 
one and all of these and any one of the four canonical 
Gospels, only make the existence of these four the 
more remarkable. There, however, they are, and 
they can be examined and criticized; but this it is 
not my purpose to do: I am only describing the 
contents of the New Testament, not criticizing them. 
We have one other historical book, which seems like 
a fragment ; it contains much interesting matter, but 
23 


THE EVIDENCES FOR THE 


breaks off just when our interest seems to be most 
keenly excited as to what the history of the Church 
will be. 

And then there is a collection of letters, written to 
churches, written to individuals, chiefly by apostles, 
which constitute an irregular kind of code of doctrine, 
but have little of systematic teaching, and certainly 
are not what would have been expected to have been 
the chief legacy of the apostles to the churches which 
they founded. 

Last comes the Book of Revelation, which is full 
of mystery and vision and prophecy. It is a book 
concerning which every variety of opinion has existed 
—from that which would make it the prediction of all 
Church history to the end of time, to the most recent 
view of M. Ernest Rénan, who sees in it nothing but 
the Emperor Nero from beginning to end. But what- 
ever the book may be, it has gradually won its way, 
through considerable distrust and Opposition, till it 
~has been almost universally received into the place 
of honour in which the English Church puts it—as the 
head corner-stone of the fabric of Holy Scripture. 

I have thus rapidly run through the contents of the 
Old and New Testament, because I think that habit 
so much accustoms us to what I may call a book- 
seller's view of the Holy Scriptures—as one book out 
of many—that we are apt to forget the exceedingly 
miscellaneous and heterogeneous composition of the 
contents of the Sacred Volume. But, miscellaneous 

24 


INSPIRATION .OF HOLY SCRIPTURE: 


and heterogeneous as that composition is, there seems 
to be no reason why the Holy Scriptures should not 
have a substantial unity,—just as the primitive and 
secondary and tertiary rocks, the sandstones and slates 
and coal measures, and the rest, have evidently been 
put together for a good purpose, and according to 
one design and law. And if we ask what is the 
substantial unity of these strangely various literary 
materials, I answer that it is to be found in the fact 
that they all connect themselves with the one Person 
of Christ; it is only as the history of His kingdom 
that we can understand the book, or that we can 
properly describe it as a book at all: the book is, in 
fact, the Book of Messiah. The members of the ancient 
Jewish Church would, I suppose, without difficulty 
have so spoken of their sacred writings; they regarded 
them as valuable in the light of the past history of 
their race, but still more so in the light of a prophecy 
of future glory ; and we take up this view, only we say — 
that the New Testament has completed the Old, and 
that the prophecy of one has become the history of 
_ the other ; and the unity of the whole may be realized 
in a wonderful way, when we listen to Handel's great 
work, which bears the name of Messiah, and the 
words of which are contributed by one Testament as 
much as by the other. 

_ Before pursuing this thought any further, however, 
I will ask you to give your attention to a few other 
and subsidiary considerations. 

25 


THE EVIDENCES: FOR. THE 


4. I should like, for example, to put before you the 
consideration of the efforts that have been and are 
being made to propagate and spread the Bible. To 
bring the matter into the smallest possible compass, 
imagine yourselves walking down Queen Victoria. 
Street, City, and there you come upon a large building 
which is marked as the “ Bible Society’s Warehouse” : 
this building, with all its offices and official apparatus, 
represents the operations of a society which ramifies 
in some form or other almost all over Europe, and 
which collects and spends yearly the revenue of a 
small principality in simply publishing and spreading 
the Holy Scriptures in all languages—especially in 
English. This effort of spreading this one book 
brings together into one active and energetic body 
thousands of persons who agree in scarcely anything 


else; and the result is that the Bible is obtainable 


with a facility which belongs to no other book ; and 
it has been made so common and so cheap, that I 
have been told it is almost the only existing thing 
upon which pawnbrokers will not advance money. 

I am not pronouncing any opinion upon the opera- 
tions of this Society: we know very well that there 
is a large portion of Christendom who take a different 
view of the propagation of the faith, and who object 
to an indiscriminate spread.of the Bible: but a great 
phenomenon like this cannot be ignored; there must 
be something unique in the Bible, which leads to this 
unique treatment. There is no other book which 

26 


INSPIRATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE: 


could keep a great society Sse oe in propagating 
it, fora single day. __ 

In fact, the efforts made to Aor the Bible are 
merely one particular outcome of the principle of 
spreading the Gospel, which, as we know, Jesus Christ 
impressed upon His followers: the one thing which 
He charged them to do was to make His Name 
known; and the one thing which they did—which the 
Church as a Church has done’ ever since—has been to 
carry out the charge. And as in thus obeying the 
command of Christ, Christians have ever believed 
that they were obeying a Divine voice, and were 
telling others what-God had said to them, so in 
spreading the Holy Scriptures, men have thought 
that they were in a peculiar manner obeying God 
and making known His Word. 

I have taken the Bible Society merely asa aeonaiie dt 
institution erected especially and solely for this work ; 
but it will be remembered that those who least adopt 
the principles of that Society agree as to the duty of 
making known the contents of the Bible. So that the 
argument stands thus :—There exists one book, and 
one only, concerning the contents of which thousands 
of mankind agree that they ought in some way to be 
made known to the whole world: for this. they are 
willing to labour, for this they are willing to go 
through all kinds of trouble, for this they are willing, 
if need be, to encounter death itself. 

Is there not, to say the least, something very 

27 


THE EVIDENCES FOR THE 


wonderful in this instinct of propagation which 
belongs to those who in any way have charge of the 
Bible? 

5. Another consideration of a very different kind, 
but connected with the propagation of the Bible 
throughout the world, is the susceptibility of transla- 
tion into various languages which has been proved 
by experience to exist. Suppose it had been desired 
to naturalize Homer in various languages: how 
difficult the task would have been! How different 
are the various attempts that have been made to 
translate Homer into English !—it may, perhaps, still 
be questioned both whether the problem has yet 
been solved, and whether it ever will be. Or suppose 
that the same thing had to be done with our own 
Shakspeare: how impracticable some of the languages 
would be found to be! Plain prose history, of course, 
admits generally, of simple transmission from one 
tongue to another: but a large portion of the Bible 
is poetry; and when one reads the poetical portions, 
one cannot but wonder at the plasticity of the material 
of which the poetry is composed ; the sublimity of 
Isaiah, the sparkling brightness of the Psalms, the 
solemn, dirge-like utterances of Jeremiah, are so 
striking in their English dress, that they seem as if 
they could scarcely have suffered perceptibly by trans- 
mission from the Hebrew.* | 

* On this subject see Professor Stanley Leathes’ Essays on 


“The Structure of the Old Testament” : ¢. iv., “ The Poetic 
28 


INSPIRATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 


And even putting the question of poetry on one 
side, such narratives as the first chapter of Genesis 
and the Gospels (to take two widely separated ex- 
amples) seem as if they were couched in terms of 
magnificent simplicity on purpose that they might _ 
become the property of all mankind :—“God said, 
‘Let there be light! and there was light.” “God saw 
everything that He had made, and behold, it was 
very good.” “When He came nigh to the gates of 
the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, 
the only son of his mother, and she was a widow ; 


Element.” Indeed, I should be glad to refer the reader to all the 
chapters of this interesting little volume. I quote one passage : 
“ The characteristic features of Old Testament poetry are—first, 
the breadth of its intense sympathy, which is as deep as human 
sorrow, and as wide as mental suffering ; and, secondly, z¢s entire 
independence of merely verbal accidents, such as metre, rhyme, or 
the collocation of words, to which the very greatest poets owe so 
much. The melody of Shakspeare, and the harmony of Milton, 
are among their chiefest ornaments. Though 


‘One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,’ 


and in this sense Shakspeare is the poet of humanity, yet the 
empire of his influence must be bounded by the limits of the 
English language ; where the knowledge of English has not 
penetrated, the influence of Shakspeare must be, comparatively 
speaking, unfelt ; but it is not too much to say, that in spite of 
the deficiencies of translation, the impossibility of transplanting 
the exotic peculiarities of Hebrew diction—to which, of course, 
the native poets, in common with all others, must necessarily 
owe something—the influence of David as a poet has been felt 
far more widely among the English-speaking population of the 
world than ever it was felt in Palestine of old.” 


29 


THE EVIDENCES FOR THE 


and much people of the city was with her,” These 
are two or three sentences out of ten thousand, which | 
seem as if intended for universal currency: one can 
scarcely imagine a language by translation into which 
they would suffer the smallest loss; and though, 
doubtless, there are difficult passages,—nay, it may 
well be, some passages the actual production of 
which, in the full delicacy of meaning, is impossible, 
—still the general character of the Old and New 
Testament alike may be described as ¢ranslateability : 
certainly the words of Christ, above all others, have 
that simplicity and clearness which, more than any-— 
thing else, facilitate universal currency, and almost 
make them independent of the particular tongue in 
which they are conveyed. 

6. A cognate feature of Holy Scripture seems to 
be discoverable in this—namely, its wonderful adap- 
tation to the wants of those who have to teach 
their fellows. Let us bear in mind for one moment, 
and reflect upon, the almost universal practice of 
Christian teachers with regard to the lessons which 
they try to impress upon those whom they teach. The 
practice is to take a few words as a text, and to make 
that text the basis of exposition and exhortation, and 
what not. There may be among us a certain number | 
of Mar-texts,—probably there are, and will be; but 
only consider to what a constant ordeal a book is 
exposed, from which, every Sunday at least, many, 
many thousands of fragments are extracted, and made 

30 


INSPIRATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 


the basis of teaching on the most solemn subjects to 
millions of people! All over Christendom this procéss 
is going on, and it has been going on from the earliest 
tines, and yet there would seem to be no danger what- 
ever of exhaustion; texts are as abundant each year: 
as they were in the year before, or as they were a cen- 
tury back; and ever,as history progresses, and times 
change, and new forms of thought and conditions of 
‘society arise, Christian teachers are found who have 
something to say, and who connect their thoughts 
-with the words of Holy Scripture: 

Nor is it only one class of society to whom such 
teaching is addressed : it is not addressed merely to 
the simple and ignorant ; but University pulpits, as 
well as those of the village churches, are supplied 
with texts for sermons upon every conceivable subject 
from the inexhaustible store of this same wonderful 
book. : 

Commentators, meanwhile, find as much to do as 
preachers. That which Jewish rabbis and Christian 
fathers, did many centuries ago, learned divines are 
doing still. In fact, the whole study of divinity, and 
all our religious controversies, and the amazing col- 
lection® of theological books which you may see in 
any of our public libraries,—all these things bear 
concurrent witness to the inexhaustible character 
of Holy Scripture, to which I am ee your 
attention by the way. 

a And even those features of Holy Scripture 

31 


THE EVIDENCES FOR THE 


which an unbeliever would be most sure to fasten 
upon as blemishes, though I may not be able to 
explain them, or say why they should have been 
permitted to exist, do yet not constitute any serious 
difficulty in the argument which I am endeavouring 
to set forth. I will suppose, for argument’s sake, that 
many of the allegations which have been made con- 
cerning the Bible, and which have been thought to 
discredit it, are true. I will suppose its history to 
contain some irreconcileable points of chronology, 
its earliest records to partake of the obscurity which © 
generally belongs to such records, antediluvian lon- 
gevity to be an insoluble riddle, and the figures of 
the Pentateuch to be as erroneous as they have been 
represented to be. I will suppose also the books of 
the New Testament to contain some at least of the 
discrepancies which have been charged upon them. 
Still what does it all come to? Is there anything 
more strange than that which we witness in the 
material world ? Is there anything to make it 
probable that the God who made the world did 
not make the Bible? I know not how it is, but 
both in material and spiritual things the ways of 
God seem never to have that character which 
may be described as optimism. The globe upon — 
which we live has had a rude and strange history ; 
vast, incalculable ages of wild existence have been 
necessary in order to produce the cosmos which we 
witness to-day; and even now there is much in the 
32 


as 


- INSPIRATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 


government of the world, of which we can only say 
that God governs it, and that God’s ways are different 
from ours. And if the phenomena of the world be 
such as to produce the conclusion in any man’s mind 
that the world is not God’s world, then I cannot find - 
fault with the twin conclusion, that the Bible is not 
God’s Book; but if the general argument in favour 
of the world being in the truest sense God’s world, 
He the Maker and Governor and Father of it all, not- 
-withstanding many anomalies and strange phenomena, 
be accepted, then [ think it may be truly urged that the 
general argument in favour of Holy Scripture is also 
so sound and weighty that no anomalies or strange 
_ phenomena need interfere with our conclusions; or 
rather, to put the matter still more strongly, these 
very anomalies may lead us to suspect that the God 
of Nature and the God of Scripture are indeed one 
and the same. | : : 

8. These remarks, which only touch the fringe of 
a great subject, lead me to add a few words with 
regard to certain views of inspiration to which I 
made reference ina former part of this lecture. It 
will be seen how entirely independent the considera- 
tions which I have been urging are of any special 
theory concerning inspiration. Some have held, and 
some hold still, that inspiration implies that every 
sentence and word of Holy Scripture must be free 
from error ; some that inspiration implies a preserva- 
tion from error in matters of doctrine, though not 

33 D. 


THE EVIDENCES KOR THE 


necessarily in matters of fact; some have adopted 
the phrase of dynamical inspiration, as opposed to that 
theory which would make the sacred penman a mere 
machine under a Divine influence ; others, again, have 
—wisely, as I think—brought into prominence the fact, 
that the human element in the Holy Scriptures is as 
conspicuous as the Divine, and that neither ought to 
be omitted in considering what inspiration is. For 
my own part, I do not wish to go into any of these 
questions to-day; on general grounds, I would rather 
apply to writing under the influence of the Spirit that 
language, which our Lord applied to those who are 
born of the Spirit, when He said, “ The wind bloweth 
where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, 
but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it 
goeth ; so is every one that is born of the Spirit” : 
and with regard to my particular line of argument, 
I wish it to be observed that all question of the 
“How can these things be?” lies outside the line 
which I have marked out for you and me to-day. 
My principle is, not to say what inspiration is, and 
then try to show that the Bible has the quality so 
defined, but contrariwise, to take the Bible as we find. 
it, examine it in its construction and history and 
divers qualities, and then ask, ‘‘ May we not properly 
say that a book, being such as this is, has been given 
-by inspiration of God?” And I would venture to 
say that, if this lecture has any special value, it is to 
be found in this suggestion of a mode of looking 
34 


INSPIRATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 


at a difficult subject. Sometimes the suggestion of 
a point of view is the most important hint towards | 
seeing the view to advantage: and my purpose is, 
not to say everything that can be said concerning 
inspiration, but rather to say to you, Take your Bible, 
look at it thus, and thus,—and I ¢#zwk you will come 
to the conclusion that it is in a true sense the Book 
of God. 


All this being so, let me put before you the. general 
view of Holy Scripture, which I wish to press upon 
you, in manner following :— | 

I find in the volume which we call the Bible a col- 
lection of literature extending over, say, 1500 years. 
The precise length of time is of no importance ; I only 
wish to mark it as being a Jong time. This literature 
“is the production of members of one family, or, if you 
please, one nation; but that nation, as it now exists in 
a scattered condition, does not own it all as national ; 
on the contrary, it eschews the second volume of the 
book with unmitigated scorn. So that the book is 
not a national book, and therefore not the result of. 
national prejudice or self-conceit ; but it implies and 
is built upon the destruction of the nation to whose 
members, nevertheless, all the writings are due. 

This literature of 1500 years, when it comes to be 
bound up in one volume, is found in many ways to 
have a substantial unity which is typified by this union 
~ in one volume. Thus, for example, the unity of God 
35 : 


THE EVIDENCES FOR THE 


lies at the foundation of all -. whatever doubt there 


may be about other things, there is none about this: 
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the 
earth,’—these are the first words of the book ; and 
though there is much concerning God's doings upon 
every page, and we see the hand of God (so to speak) 
in every point of view, and though in the New Testa- 
ment we find the being of God represented in what 
we call “the Trinity in Unity,” still the one God 
Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, in whom we 
profess our faith in the Creeds, stands forth CUS a 
in unquestioned and undivided Majesty. 

But, again, it is not a mere numerical unity (so to 
speak) which exhibits itself in the Scripture character 
of God; there is still more conspicuously exhibited 
what I may call a moral unity of purpose. “As soon 
as God has been revealed as the One Maker and 
Governor of all things, we seem (as it were) to hear 
nothing more of Him in this character, but to assume 
this foundation-truth, and pass on to other truths of 
a still more practically important kind. The fall of 
man, the introduction of sin and disobedience, follow 
immediately upon the physical creation, and engross 
all subsequent interest. No one can read the Scrip- 
ture without perceiving and confessing that, from 
beginning to end, it is the history of God dealing with 
sin and educating sinful men. I am not now saying 
anything as to how God is represented as doing this ; 
you may suggest, if you please, so far as my argument 

36 


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PS RIE EM BEE ried PY MNP SPR NST 2a aOR ere Rae Cree ee 


INSPIRATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 


is concerned, that it is incredible that God should have 
so acted ; you may deny redemption, and all connected 
‘with it, if you please, on @ priori grounds: all that T- 
“assert, and this cannot be denied, is that throughout 
Holy Scripture you find God represented as dealing 
with sin, the introduction of which into the world is 
almost the first fact related,—the actually first, indeed, 
_after the narrative of the creation of man. | 

Even this kind of unity, however, is nothing as com- 
pared with that which is to be found in the fact, that 
the whole volume seems in one way or another to be 
connected with ove man—one man who, whether He 
be what we Christians believe or not, is by almost. 
universal confession “the fairest of the children of 
men,” is the man who has done most to purify the ~ 
world from pollution, and to introduce what is good 
and godlike. 

It would require more time than I have at my 
disposal to work out this thought completely ; nor is it 
necessary : a few hints will suffice for those who have 
the knowledge which I may very well assume in all 

of you. You see the first trace of this one man in 
the promise of the seed of the woman which was to 
bruise the head of the serpent. I do not know how you 
can get rid of the significance of this early trace of the 
one man: it is like the footstep which Robinson Crusoe 
~ saw in the sand—a small thing in itself, but pregnant 
with tremendous and inevitable conclusions. The 
chief point, however, as regards the Old Testament, is 

Sh 


THE EVIDENCES FOR THE 


= 


¢ 


this: that somehow or another the literature of the 
Jewish Church was felt to centre in one man centuries 


before Christ came ; a general impression, as we know, © 


pervaded not only the land of Palestine, but the whole 
East, that some great one would arise,about the time 
that Jesus Christ was born, who should become uni- 
versal king; and the remarkable thing is this,—that if 
you take that literature by itself, you find it leaving 
off suddenly with (as it were) a fingerpost pointing 
across the waste of time, and pointing to no one; but 
when you look at that literature as supplemented by 
the Christian Scriptures, you find that the fingerpost 
of Malachi points to Jesus Christ. 

It is this introduction of unity into the whole 
scattered fragmentary collection of literature, by the 
reference of all to the person of one man, even Jesus 
Christ our Lord, which is to my own mind the most 
convincing proof that the Holy Scriptures are of God 
that is, that they are inspired. For if there be this 
unity of purpose and construction, it seems to me that 
there must be also one Author and Designer: it is like 
looking at the parts of a machine; look at them 


separately, and you can neither guess who made them, | 


nor why they were made; they may have no use, or 
they may be even the toys of a lunatic; but put them 
together, and set the machine in operation, and watch it 
as you see all the wheels and pinions and straps working 
together towards one end, and then you say, “ This 


is manifestly the work of some great engineer ; the 
38 


INSPIRA TION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 


different parts of the machine may have been made. 
here or there, by this man or that ; some of them may 
possibly be not perfectly finished, some of them may 
be coarser and heavier than they might have been, 
some may be the worse for wear and may have been 
taken out of other machines ; but that the whole thing — 
as. I see it is the work of one presiding mind,—of this 

I cannot entertain a reasonable doubt.” 

The main purpose of this lecture is to. apply this 
kind of argument to the volume of Holy Scripture.* 
I believe it to be one which you will find to grow upon 
you the more you consider it. It is an argument of a_ 


* I take this opportunity of referring to Archbishop Trench’s 
Hulsean Lectures, entitled “The Fitness of Holy Scripture for 
unfolding the Spiritual Life of Men,”—which are, in fact, indi- 
rectly, lectures on “‘ The Evidences for the Inspiration of Holy 
Scripture.” Many passages | would gladly have quoted as 
strongly supporting the view which I have ventured to take ; but 

1 will content myself with the following from the Lecture on 
“The Unity of Scripture,” the text of which is Ephesians 1. 9, 10. 
“ But this unity of Scripture, where is it? from what point shall 
we behold and recognise it? Surely from that in which these 
verses which I have taken from the Epistle to the Ephesians 
will place us ; when we regard it as the story of the knitting 
anew the broken relations between the Lord God and the race’ 
‘of man; of the bringing the First-begotten into the world, for 
the gathering together all the scattered and the sundered in 
Him ; when we regard it as the true Paradise Regained—the 
true De Civitate Dei—even by a better title than those noble 
books which bear these names; the record of that mystery of 
God’s will which was working from the first, to the end hat in 
the dispensation of the fulness of time, He might gather together 
in one all things in Christ.” — ; 


39 


INSPIRATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 


broad kind. It does not depend upon minor considera- 
tions, though it does not exclude them. It is not bound 
up with any special theory of the manner and kind of 
inspiration, though it does not require you to refrain 
from investigating such questions, if you think it well 
so todo. It rests upon the belief that a grand unity 


of purpose is to be discovered in Holy Scripture, that — 
that unity of purpose is bound up with the history © 


and life of Him whom all civilized nations have in- 
stinctively owned as their Lord and King, and that a 
unity of purpose of this kind cannot be explained 
without the supposition of unity of authorship. Who 

is the one author whose works extend, as we have 
geen, over some fifteen centuries? It cannot in the 


nature of things be a man: is it unreasonable or un- | 


philosophical to say that the author is God Himself ? 


I have only to add that in one respect my lecture 
does not correspond to its advertised title. It was 
advertised that I would lecture upon “ 7e Evidences 


for the Inspiration of Holy Scripture.” I dare not. 


say that I have given you ¢he evidences: that would 


be a task beyond my ‘powers, and beyond my | 


time, What I have done is to suggest one line of 
argument, which has been precious to me in thought, 
and which I have now endeavoured to express in 
words, with the hope that it may prove pica to 
some of you. 


40 


THE EVIDENCE TO THE TRUTH OF 
CHRISELINIT VOSUPPIIED- BY PROPHECY. 


BY 


WILLIAM LINDSAY ALEXANDER, :D.D., F.R.S.E, 


soe hem ao 
tite. 


z ed. Senta, 

Realy ys et eaten 
ee Ha 
te ay eee 


ay 
Z 
i 


THE EVIDENCE 10. THE TRUIH. OF 
CHRISTIANITY SUPPLIED BY PROPHECY. 


Pp ROPHECY, jin the sense in which the term is used in 
such discussions as the present, is the foretelling of 
future events,—the announcing that some person shall 
appear and act in a particular way, or that some event 
or series of events shall take place, of whose appear- 
ance or occurrence there is no immediate or natural 
probability at the time the announcement is made. 
This is_a restricted application of the term. As the 
ancient prophet was the medium of communication 
from God to men, as he was emphatically the speaker 
for or in the place of God to the people, his utterances 
had respect to many things besides the prediction of 
things to come. He had to declare God’s will to 
men, to teach Divine truth, to lay down principles of 
religious belief and ethical obligation, to give counsel 
in respect to affairs of national or personal interest, 
to rebuke, to warn, to comfort, to exhort, as occasion 
required, and as he was directed of the Lord. In the 
prophetical writings of Scripture, consequently, we 
43 ‘ 


THE EVIDENCE TO THE TRUTH OF 


find many things which have no bearing on future — 
events ; indeed, the greater portion of the prophetic © 


writings is of this character. Prophecy, therefore, in 
its wide sense, is whatever the prophet, as the man 
of God, uttered in the name of God to men. But it 
is not on prophecy in this wide sense that the argu- 
ment now in hand has to be raised. The argument 
from prophecy in favour of Christianity is founded 
solely on what the prophet as a seer announced 
concerning persons and events in that future which 
to the men of his day was wholly hidden from view. 
This argument is in itself very brief; but it is 
capable of being illustrated to a wide extent, and 


‘when so illustrated it acquires a cumulative force. — 
In this respect it resembles the argument from design 


in proof of the existence of a Supreme Being, which 
may be clearly stated in a single syllogism, but is 
capable of being expanded so as to occupy volumes 
replete with-interest. It resembles in this respect 


also its cognate argument—that from miracles—an — 


argument which may be fitly illustrated and enforced 
at great length, but which was expressed in all its 
substantial force by Nicodemus in a single sentence, 
when he said to Christ, “Rabbi, we know that Thou 


art a teacher come from God; for no man can do 


those miracles that Thou doest, except God be with 
him.”* It will not be expected that in a discourse 


like the present the attempt will be made to refer to 


* John iii. 2. 


44 


Spinto ites ia UE aa Oo Se 
id es ey Pa ee MO eae ae 
gt EP PEL TN ER ee RR yee: Tae aoe 


an Stee CE ae DE rea ge ame Bary pee 


ATS ae POA wa 


hai 


RSIS ee aT ee 


N 


CHRISTIANITY SUPPLIED BY PROPHECY. 


all the predictions contained in Scripture upon which 
an argument in favour of the Divine authority of that 
book, and of the religion it teaches, might be raised. 
All I shall attempt is to state distinctly the argument _ 
itself, to determine its conditions, to show for what — 
it is valid, to indicate the general character of the 
Scripture predictions, to point out their evidential 
force, and to meet certain objections that have been 
urged against this. . 

The argument from prophecy is addressed to those 
who, believing in a personal God, may not be pre- 
pared to accept the Bible as a revelation from Him, 
or who may desire to have their faith in that con- 
firmed. Believing in God, such will admit that to Him 
all things are known—that the entire course of events 
in the history of the world, on to the end of time, 
is before His view—and that He can, if He pleases, 
at any moment foretell what is to happen in subse- 
quent times. It will also be admitted that He, as 
Omnipotent, is able to convey into the mind of His — 
intelligent creatures intimations or representations of 
future events, and to enable them to announce and 
- describe these to others. It will further be admitted 
that without such communication from God no man 
can really predict what is to happen in the yet in- 
discernible and it may be far-distant future. Now 
these things being admitted, the argument from pro- 
phecy lays hold of certain predictions contained in 
the Bible, and building on them, infers that, as the 

45 


THE EVIDENCE TO THE TRUTH OF 


men who uttered or recorded these predictions could 
have done so only by Divine help, and as such help 
would not have been given save to such as God com- 
missioned to speak in His name and be organs of 
communication from Him to men, the fact that they 
did utter such predictions proves that God was with — 
them and had sent them forth. They are, therefore, 
to be regarded as the channels through which God 
has been pleased to convey His will to men,—as 
persons sanctioned and authorised to speak in the 
name of God, so that what they deliver to us as from 
God is to be accepted by us as indeed His word. 

It will be observed for what this argument is 
affirmed to be valid. It is valid not to prove imme- 
diately and directly the truth of the prophet’s message 
or utterance; what it proves is the divinity of his 
commission, his being sent of God and authorised to 
speak to men in God’s name. This proved, the truth 
of what he utters follows as a necessary conclusion. — 
For as all that God says must be true, what He com- 
missions and empowers any man to speak in His 
name must no less be true. We thus arrive at a 
conviction that the Bible contains the truth of God, 
and that the religion it unfolds and teaches is divinely 
true, not immediately from the predictions contained 
in it, but inferentially from the fact that these predic- 
tions prove that those who delivered them were sent 
of God, and were authorised by Him to speak His 
word to men. 

46 


CHRISTIANITY SUPPLIED BY PROPHECY. 


ene argument here is essentially the same as that 
from miracles. A miracle does not afford any proof 
immediately and directly of the truth of any doctrine 
or message. Moral and religious truth can never be 
proved by any manifestation of physical power, how- 
ever marvellous. What the miracle proves is that 
God is with the man who performs it, and that the 
man consequently is authorised to speak in God's 
name. A miracle simply announces that God is 
about to speak through one of His servants, and 
summons us to listen to what is spoken, as if God 
Himself addressed us by a voice from heaven. That 
what is so spoken is to be accepted as infallibly true, 
is a necessary inference from the fact that it is vir- 
tually God who speaks. It is the same with prophecy. 
A prediction uttered and fulfilled affords evidence that 
God was with the man who uttered it. He is thereby — 
authenticated as sent by God, and what he utters in 
the name of God is to be accepted by us as Divine. 
That it is also true is inferred by us as a necessary 
consequence of its being Divine. 

Here it is proper to note the close affinity—we 
might rather say the identity—of miracles and pro- 
phecy. Both belong to the same category. Their - 
identity is sometimes expressed by saying that the 
one is a miracle of knowledge, and the other a miracle 
of power; both being thus classed as miraculous. It 
would perhaps be more correct to place both under 
the head of prophecy. For in a miracle, all that the 

47 ; 


THE EVIDENCE TO THE: TRUTH OF 


~ man, who apparently performs it, really does, is to 


announce—that is, foretell—that a certain event is 
about to happen. It is God who, by an immediate 
exercise of His power, produces the effect. The only 
difference between this and what is usually restric- 


tively called prophecy, is that in the one case the 
thing foretold is an effect that is immediately to - 


follow by an exercise of the Divine power, in the 
other case the thing predicted is an event which is to 
_ happen, it may be in the far-distant future, in the 
current history of the world. And this difference 
occasions a difference in the evidential incidence of 
the two. Both afford evidence that God is with the 
man, but while a miracle affords this evidence at the 
time it is performed, prophecy becomes evidential 
only when it is fulfilled. In accordance with this, 
when our Lord appealed to His miracles in proof 
that He was sent of God, His argument was, “The 
works that I do bear witness of me that the Father 
hath sent me;” but when He appealed to His pre- 
dictions, His words were, “Now I tell you before it 
come, that when it is come to pass, ye may believe 
that Iam He.” * The witness which His works bare 
was a present witness, a witness to the men who saw 
these works; the _witness which His_ predictions 
afforded would be rendered only in the future, when 
what He predicted had come to pass. Our Lord here 
recognised a principle which holds of all prediction. 
* John v. 36; xiii. 19. i 
48 


FL CO aE WI A Poy eo ehh Py aga TO III Oia WE ee a LRT ee 2 hee TEs 


¥ 


ree t Sa 4 2 s : “ 
Ee | aL hide a * ' 
TELS aS ree es Oe er SIC Ny Sa LOY ee See ee ee 
AEN RS RE Shas AR Pl eee Pe ene aR TT SN TG RE CEN ge ar 


CHRISTIANITY SUPPLIED BY PROPHECY. 


It thus appears that when a prediction is fulfilled, - 
it is valid to prove the Divine commission and autho- 
rity of the man by whom it was uttered. In order 
to this validity, however, certain conditions must be 
complied with. 

First : The prophecy must be a real prediction—that 
is, it must have been uttered before the event. This 
condition has to be specified, because sometimes poets, 
and even historians, living and writing after the event, 
in order to give vivacity to their narrative or interest 
to their description, have represented some one as 
foretelling it at an earlier age. Thus Virgil, for in- 
stance, in the sixth book of the A‘neid, represents 
Anchises as narrating to his son A‘neas the deeds 
and fates of his supposed illustrious descendants in 
Italy during successive ages. But no one takes this 
for prophecy ; it is merely a narrative, partly fictitious, 
partly real, of what tradition or history had brought 
down to the poet’s time, and which he puts into the 
form of.prediction merely for the sake of effect.* 

Secondly: It must xot be a mere happy guess or con- 
jecture as to what'is to happen in the future, which in 
the course of events comes to be apparently realized. 
A poet, for instance, having no special event in view, 
but simply allowing the reins to his imagination, and 


* So also our own Spenser, in his ‘‘ Faery Queene,” puts in the 
form of prediction descriptions of events in English history, and 
in that form makes complimentary allusions to Queen Elizabeth, 
that “fair vestal thronéd in the West.” 


49 ES 


THE EVIDENCE T0O.THE TRUTH OF 


drawing a picture of what will be in the future from what 
he wishes or hopes or conjectures may be, may some- 
times hit upon what seems an anticipation of events 


realized in subsequent ages. Such is the famous pre- — 


diction, as it has been called, in the Medea of Seneca. 


Here the poet, describing in animated strains what 


he imagines may be the consequences of a voyage to 
which herefers, and intimating that among other results 
that may be anticipated will be the penetrating by the 
adventurous mariner into regions previously unknown, 
breaks forth, in the conclusion of his song, into the an- 
nouncement that in late years a time will come when 
ocean may relax the bonds of things, and the vast earth 
-may be open, and the navigator may discover new 
worlds, and Thule be no longer the end of the earth.* 
This has been dignified into a prediction of the discovery 
of America by Columbus; and bysome writers has been 
pronounced to be as clearly predictive of that event as 
any prophecy in the Bible can be held to be predictive 
of any event which may be alleged for its accomplish- 
ment. It is probable, however, that the poet had in 
view no age later than his own for the fulfilment of 
what he announces; for though he uses the expres- 
sion “late years” (seris annis), yet, as he puts the 
| * “Venient annis 

Seecula seris, quibus oceanus 

Vincula rerum laxet, et ingens 

Pateat tellus, Typhisque novos 


Detegat orbes ; nec sit terris 
Ultima Thule.” SENECA, JJedea v. 374 ff. 


a2 


+4 


CHRISTIANITY SUPPLIED. BY PROPHECY. 


words in the mouth of a chorus composed of persons 
supposed to belong to the far-back mythical ages, his 
own time as compared with these would be a very 
late age. But be this as it may, even if we take this 
passage as spoken from the poet’s own standpoint, it 
cannot be regarded as containing a genuine prophecy. 
As has been justly observed, these verses of the Latin 
poet are but “a striking example of a prediction that 
might safely take its chance in the world, and hap- 
pen what might, could not fail some time or other to 
meet with its accomplishment.”* It isin fact nothing 
more than a vivid poetical picture of what might be 
done by men who had ships, and were likely to go 
on improving them, and advancing in the knowledge 
and practice of navigation, until the ancient boun- 
_daries were passed, and new countries were discovered. 
Had the poet given such a description of some new 
territory to be discovered as would have enabled us 
to identify it with America, or such a delineation of 
the manner and circumstances of the discovery as to 
make it certain that only to the enterprise of Colum- 
bus and his companions could his announcement 
refer, there would have been here a real prediction. 
But as the passage stands, there is no announcement _ 
of any fact or event in the future, the happening of 
which is foretold; there is simply a vague general 
description of what might be reasonably anticipated. 
It may be added, that in the immediately preceding 
* Horsely, “ Sermons,” vol. il. p. 75. 


51 


@ 


THE EVIDENCE TO°THE TRUE -OF 


PR eae eee eee eee eae ae ee ae ea eee a TT 


‘context the poet has ventured on a prediction some- 


what more precise than that contained in the passage 
cited. “The Indian,” he -says, “drinks the gelid 
Araxes; the Persians imbibe the Elbe and the Rhine.”* 
This, if it mean anything, means that the native of 


-Hindostan shall occupy the district through which 


the Araxes flows, that is—the country of Armenia ; 
and that the region which is watered by the Elbe and 
the Rhine shall be colonised by Persians. But if this is 
a prediction, it is one which has'never been fulfilled, nor 
is ever likely to be fulfilled. So that when the poet 
descends from vagué guesses and empty generalities 
to utterances which seem to point to actual persons, 
places, and events, he proves himself no prophet, but 
a mere fanciful versifier. 

An English poet of the last century has introduced . 


into one of his poems an anticipation of some of the 


recent applications of science to the uses of man, 
which has a much better claim to be regarded asa 
prediction than the utterance of the Roman poet. 
Celebrating the powers of steam, Dr. Erasmus Dar- 
win says— — 
- Soon shall thy arm, unconquer’d steam, ae 
ras the slow barge, or drive the rapid car,’ 
As this was written before the application of steam to 
the propelling of vessels had come into use, and long 
* “Tndus gelidum 


Potat Araxem; Albim Persze 
Rhenumque bibunt.” Medea, v. 372-4. 


52 


CHRISTIANITY SUPPLIED BY PROPHECY. 


before any method of applying it to the driving of. 
carriages had apparently occurred to any one, these 
lines might be hailed as a prediction of what we now 
see so largely realized. But no one, not even the 
author himself, ever dreamt of regarding them as such, 
They are a mere scientific prevision of what the poet, 
who was also a man of science, fancied might come to 
pass from what he knew of the powers of the element 
whose praises he was celebrating. If any had been 
inclined to base on them a claim, on the part of the 
poet, to be regarded as a prophet, the next following 
lines of his poem would be sufficient to dissipate such. 
pretensions, for in them the ardour of his imagination 
carries him beyond the bounds of sea and land, and 
prompts him to exclaim— 
“ Or’on wide-waving wings expanded bear | 
The flying chariot through the fields of air.” 


This is an achievement which has not only not yet 
been accomplished by steam, but which only a very 
enthusiastic mechanician would venture on anticipat- 
ing as within the possibility of ever being realized by 
such agency. The poet has evidently in the whole 
passage been simply giving the reins. to fancy, and 
allowing her to roam at large in the “fine frenzy” 
of poetic excitement— 


“Rapido mentem correptus ab cestro.” 


From such mere conjectures, whether felicitous or 
. otherwise, of an ardent imagination, true prophecy 
53 


THE EVIDENCE TO THE TRUTH OF 


as a purposed prediction of events must be distin- 
guished. hiert , 
Thirdly: It must not be a mere sagacious anticipa- 
tion of a result to which concurrent events and influences 
ave tending, and which men versed in affairs, well 
acquainted with human nature, and accustomed to 
look far before them in forming their plans of action, 
may foresee and foretell as likely to happen. The. 
sagacity with which such men anticipate the course 
of events, and see what is about to come to pass, is 
often marvellous. But it is only to the ear future 
that their vision extends, and it is only a probable 
guess after all that they may make, as to what’ is to 
happen then. The distant future is as dark to them 
as to other men; and as their conclusions respecting 
the future which is near are formed merely by a col- 
lation of probabilities, they will themselves be the 
first to acknowledge that, after all, what they foretell 
may never come to pass, Like the predictions as to 
the weather, which men intent on the observation of 
meteorological phenomena sometimes make as the 
result of their observations and calculations, these 
anticipations often turn out wonderfully true, but just 
as often they turn out false. From them true pro- 
phecy is distinguished as well by its precision as by 
its announcing events which lie so remote from the 
view of the prophet—remote not in time merely, but 
in natural probability—that no human intelligence or 
sagacity could conjecture their occurrence, or antici- 
5 


CHRISTIANITY SUPPLIED BY PROPHECY. 


pate them by calculations based on facts of experience, 
or deduce them from what might be fairly expected 
from existing circumstances, capacities, or tendencies, 
- in individuals or communities. 

Fourthly: \Nhatever obscurity may surround a. 
prophecy from the terms in which it is couched, a 
genuine prophecy must be free from ambiguity, 2.é., it 
must not be so expressed that it is equally susceptible 
of two interpretations, one or other of which cannot 
- but come to pass. That a certain degree of obscurity 
may attach to a prophecy is presumed; nay, more 
than this,—it must be obvious that, from the nature of 
the case, no genuine prophecy can be other than 
more or less obscure when first enunciated. For as 
St, Peter says, “No prophecy of Scripture is of private 
interpretation,’—which may mean either that no pro- 
phecy interprets itself, but remains obscure until it is 
explained by the event, or that no prophecy is of the 
prophet’s own interpretation, so that though he gave 
the prediction he could not also give the explanation 
of it; and the reason he assigns for this is, that 
“prophecy came not in the old time by the wall of 
man, but holy men of God spake being moved (or 
borne along) by the Holy Ghost.”* It thus appears 
that of a genuine prophecy it is characteristic that itt 
should be obscure, and not carry its own interpreta- 
tion in itself, or receive this from the man who utters 
it ; and the reason assigned for this by the Apostle is 


* 2 Peter i. 20, 21. 


5 ia 55 


THE EVIDENCE TO THE TRUTH OF 


an obviously valid one; for had the prophet spoken 
out of his own mind, he would, either from inability 
to do otherwise, or for the sake of finding acceptance 
for what he uttered from those to whom he uttered 
it, have spoken in a manner which mere human 
intelligence. would have found no difficulty in inter- 
preting, or would himself at least have been able to 
interpret what he uttered. Whereas, as the organ of 
the Divine Spirit, he had to announce what he himself - 
understood not, and what could not be interpreted 
till the fulfilment of the prediction cast back on it a 
revealing light. It must be obvious also that were 
any prophecy to be enunciated in terms so clear and 
distinct, and with such exactitude of detail, that any 
_ person could at once perceive how it was to be ful- 
filled, its evidential value would be thereby, if not . 
destroyed, greatly invalidated; for it might then be 
said that the fulfilment had come to pass through the 
artifice and collusion of those who for sinister ends 
desired to see it fulfilled. Whilst, then, on the one 
hand, there must not be in prophecy such obscurity 
as would render it impossible with any certainty to 
show the correspondence between the prediction and 
the fulfilment, it is on the other hand necessary and 
desirable that the prophecy should not be set forth so 
plainly that it should be subjected | to the suspicion 
that, being self-interpreting, it had fulfilled itself. _ 
But whilst prophecy is thus properly and necessarily 
obscure, it must not be ambiguous. And by this it 
56 | 


CHRISTIANITY SUPPLIED. BY PROPHECY. 


stands distinguished from the utterances of the 
Delphic and other oracles of heathen antiquity. 
These, when they assumed the form of predictions, 
and were not mere pieces of prudential counsel, were 
studiously ambiguous, and this was so notorious that 
it provoked alike the censure of the sage and the 
ridicule of the satirist.* The response of the oracle 
to Croesus, when consulted by him as to the issue of 
the war in which he purposed to engage with the 
Persians, as reported by Herodotus, is well known : t 
in this the oracle informed the king that if he crossed 
the Halys he should destroy a great empire ; which 
might mean either the empire he was about to attack 
or his own, one or other of which was pretty sure to 
be the result of his enterprise. Equally well known 
is the still more ambiguous answer of the oracle to 
-Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, when purposing to engage in 
war with the Romans: this was conveyed in two 
hexameter lines, which might with equal accuracy be 
rendered either, “I say, O son of AZacus, that thou 
canst conquer the Romans ; thou wilt go, wilt return, 
never in war shalt thou perish ;” or, “I say, O son of 
fEacus, that the Romans can conquer-thee; thou 


* See Aristotle, Rhetor. iii. c. 17; Plato, Timeeus, p. 73. 
E. ff.; Lucian, Dialog. Deor. xvi. ; Cicero, De Divinat. ii. 56. 
Porphyry ap. Euseb. Prep. Evang.—Tertullian says, the oracles 
“ingenio ambiguitates temperant,” Apol. C22: 

+ Herod. i. 53; Cic. De Divinat. ii. 56. Diodori Excerptt. 
vii. 28 ap. Nov. Script. Coll. ed. Mai i. ii. p. 25. Comp. Minu- 
cius Felix, Octavius c. 26. 


57 


THE, EVIDENCE "LO OTHE FRUIH: OF 


wilt go, wilt return never, in war shalt thou perish.”* 
Such an oracle is a mere piece of equivocation, and 
has no claim to be regarded as prophecy. | 

Fifthly : As prophecy professes to be the utterance 
of the Omniscient, nothing can be accepted as such, 
which is not formally delivered as from God. Were 
the prophet to speak as from himself, he would 
thereby belie his own pretensions, and discredit his 
utterance. He would virtually declare that what he 
uttered was not a real prediction, but some vague 
conjecture, or probable anticipation, or fanciful de- 
scription which he threw out either for his own interest, 
or to counsel others, or merely in the indulgence of 
an excited imagination. He who would be accepted 
as a true prophet must distinctly and unequivocally 
speak to men in the name of God, and present his 
predictions as what God had showed.to him, and 
commanded him to make known to others. 

Now where these conditions are complied with, and 


* “ Mio te, Atacide, Romanos vincere posse : 
Ibis, redibis nunquam in bello peribis.” 
ENNIUS. 


The meaning of these lines depends on the relative position 
of the two accusatives in the first line, either of which may be 
taken as subject, and the other as object, and the placing of 
the comma either before or after ““nunquam” in the second. 
It is doubtful if either of these oracles was ever really delivered ; 
. but as fiction must simulate truth to be accepted at all, these 
fictions of the historian Herodotus and the poet Ennius (if they 
be fictions) only show more distinctly how notoriously ambiguity 
was a characteristic of these oracles. 

58. 


*# 


CHRISTIANITY SUPPLIED BY PROPHECY. 


eer re eee ee ee 
where, in the course of time and the ordinary current 
of events, the prediction comes to pass, irresistible | 
evidence is thereby afforded that the man by whom 
it was uttered was “a man of God,” one commissioned - 
and authorised to speak to men in the name of God, © 
and all whose utterances, therefore, professedly given 
as conveying to men the mind of God, are to be 
accepted as Divine, and therefore infallibly true. 
“Man,” says an eloquent French writer, “Dy his 
science reigns over the past, over the present, even 
over the future, so far as it is determined by the 
known laws of the physical world. But before that 
future which depends only on the will of God, or the 
free-will of creatures, especially of creatures not yet 
existing, he is arrested as by an unsurmountable wall, 
at the base of which all the efforts of his genius 
expire, or at best expend themselves on vague con- 
jectures. There is the sphere of Divine science; for 
from God nothing is hid. Infinite, alone infinite, He 
embraces at once all that has been, all that is, all that 
shall be ; or rather, for God there is neither past nor 
future, but all is present to the eye of His indivisible 
and immovable eternity. That which He knows, that 
which He sees, He has always known, He has always 
seen; and He has ever been able to give the know- 
ledge of it to a man commissioned to transmit it. If 
He has given it in a matter depending solely on His 
own will, or the free-wills of creatures, especially 
creatures not yet existing, there is prophecy—a Divine 
ao 


THE EVIDENCE TO THE TRUTH OF 


act of knowledge, as other miracles are facts of Divine 
power.” * Rs 

Passing on from these general observations on the 
argument from prophecy, let us now glance at the 
prophecies of Holy Scripture as related to that 
argument. 

That the prediction of future events carries with it 
decisive evidence of the presence of God with the 
speaker or writer, and a consequent authentication 
of his pretensions as a teacher sent from God, is con- 
stantly asserted in Scripture. In proof of this I need 
cite only such passages as the following :—“ Produce 
your cause, saith the Lord; bring forth your strong 
reasons, saith the King of Jacob. Let them bring 
them forth, and show us what shall happen: let them 
show the former things, [ze, ancient predictions that 
should now be fulfilled,] what they were, that we may 
consider them, and know the latter end of them [that 
is, their event or issue]; or declare to us things to 
come. Show the things that are to come hereafter, 
that we may know that ye are gods;” “Let all the 
nations be gathered together, and let the people be 


assembled: who among them can declare this, and~ 
show us former things [predictions]? let them bring - 


forth their witnesses, that they may be justified: or 
let them hear, and say, It is the truth. . . . I, even 
I, am the Lord; and beside me there is no Saviour. 
I have declared, and saved, and made it known, when 


* Barthe, “ Appel a la Raison sur la Vérité Religieuse,” p. 165. 
60 : 


bs 


CHRISTIANITY SOPPLIED BY PROPHECY. 


there was no strange god among you; and ye are my 
witnesses, saith the Lord, that I am God;” “Who, 
as I, shall call, and shall declare it, and set it in order 
- for me, since [or from the time that] I appointed the 
- ancient people? the things that are coming, and shall 
come, let them show untothem. Fear not, neither be 
afraid; have I not told thee from that time [2.2 of 
old], and have declared it? ye are even my witnesses. 
Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I 
know not any.’* In all these passages God appeals 
to the predictions He had uttered as proving that He 
is indeed God, and challenges the votaries of idolatry 
to produce any such evidence of the claims of their 
deities to be regarded as divine. In other passages 
the effect of a true prediction in establishing the 
claims of any one to be received as a prophet of the 
Lord is enunciated. As this was the criterion God 
Himself proposed as that by which the pretensions 
of any professed prophet were to be tried, we find the 
prophets appealing to this in proof of their claims. 
Our Lord also, appearing as the Prophet of the 
Father, often appeals to this in proof of the divinity 
of His mission. And~His apostles in all their con- 
troversies with the Jews appealed to the fulfilment 
in Jesus of the ancient predictions concerning the 
Messiah as affording incontestable evidence of His 
being the Christ: an argument which. would have 
been quite invalid except on the assumption tha: 


#- sa; xit.-24-29 3. xl, 9; 17,12 4 xiv. -7,.8; 
61 


THE EVIDENCE TO THE TRUTH OF 


a fulfilled prediction must be viewed as divinely 
uttered. ; 

~The Bible thus unequivocally adduces predictive 
prophecy as an adequate evidence of the presence 
and agency of God with and upon all by whom such 
prophecy is uttered, and consequently virtually 
pledges itself to stand or fall by the validity of this 
evidence. We have now, therefore, to inquire whether 
the predictions it contains are such as will stand the 
test, and thereby substantiate this proof, and vindicate 
the claims of the Bible to be from God, in the sense 
of containing what He commissioned His servants to 
communicate to men. 

To the predictions of Scripture certain characteris- 
tics belong, which it is important to note in relation 
to this inquiry. 

1. The predictions of Scripture are avowedly pre- 
sented as the utterances through a human medium of 
the Divine Spirit. The prophets all avowedly speak 
only as the instruments or organs of Deity. They 
introduce what they have to utter with the formula, 
“Thus saith the Lord,” or, “The Lord spake unto 
me, saying,’ or, “The word that came from the Lord, 
saying ;” they call what they have to announce, 
“the burden of the Lord,” or, “the vision which the 
Lord caused them to see;” and not unfrequently 
they introduce God Himself as immediately and 
directly speaking in the words they utter or record.” 


* Compare 2 Sam. xxiii, 2; Isa. Wi, Oo ft, > XIVITLO 80.5. Jeneds 
62 


- CHRISTIANITY SUPPLIED BY PROPHECY. 


The ancient Hebrew prophets, then, came forth 
avowedly as the messengers and organs of the Most 
High. It is important to note this, because it not 
only shows that their utterances satisfy one of the 
conditions as above indicated of genuine prediction, 
but it also furnishes a strong presumptive proof of the 
divinity of their mission. For with the fact before us 
that these prophets openly asserted themselves to be 
the bearers of a message from God, we must conclude 
either that they really were, and knew that they were 
such, or that, if not wicked impostors who deceived 
the people, they were themselves deceived, and mis- 
took the hallucinations of a diseased imagination for 
revelations from heaven. Besides these three hypo- 
theses, no other can be made. Were they, then, 
impostors? This is incredible. Assuredly these were, 
as the Apostle Peter calls them, “holy men,” and 
would have shrunk with horror from the very thought 
of profaning the name of the Lord by using it to 
sanction some invention of their own. But waiving 
this, who ever heard of a long succession of impostors 
who, practising the same imposition from generation 
to generation, were never detected ; who always used 
their false pretensions to serve the interests of truth, 
righteousness, and goodness; who had no sinister ena 
to gain by their artifice, but not unfrequently brought 
upon themselves obloquy, hatred, and persecution by 
Wer ; Waék: ‘ti, 1-5; ili. 4-11, 27, (etc.;. Miey m1. 3 5 Acts iv.7 ; 
xi. 28-; xxviii. 25-27 ; Rev. i, 10; iv. 2; xvil. 33 xxl. 10. 


63 


THE EVIDENCE TO THE TRUTH OF 


the course they pursued; and who, notwithstanding 
this, so established in the minds of their nation a 
conviction of the reality of their pretensions, that 
their utterances, though often most opposed to what 
the people desired, and often most offensive to 


national pride and prejudice, have been studiously 


collected, have been preserved with religious care as 
the sacred treasure of the nation, and have been 
reverenced by them and handed to others as, “the 
oracles of God”? Equally incredible is it that the 
prophets were themselves the victims of delusion ; for 
in this case they must have laboured under a species 
of insanity: and can anything be more incredible than 
that a succession of men, not connected by hereditary 
descent, but united simply by professional occupa- 
tion, should all, each in his turn, go mad in the same 
way, that all should persistently use their madness to 
secure the best, the wisest, the most beneficent re- 
sults, and that not one of them should, during a long 
course of ages, have been detected to be insane, but 
that, on the contrary, they should all, one after the 
other, be reputed as the wise men of their day, and 
as such be consulted on matters of the utmost im- 
portance by those on whom the weightiest responsi- 
bilities were laid? This is so utterly incredible, that 
any one who.should seriously accept it would not be 
unfairly judged were he to be pronounced himself 


insane. There only remains, therefore, the conclusion 


that the prophets of the Bible were true men, who, 
64 


) 


CHRISTIANITY SUPA: BY, PROPHECY. 


when they said they were the organs of the Divine 
Spirit, said what they knew to be true. | 
2. Another characteristic of the Biblical prophecies 
is their uzty and harmony amid multiplicity and 
variety. The prophecies of Scripture are very nume- 
rous, and they have proceeded from an extended 
series of prophets, some living at the same time, and 
amid similar circumstances, while others were sepa- 
‘rated by many generations, and spoke and wrote 
under circumstances, both personal and national, 
widely diverse. Many of their predictions relate to 
the same object, but not a few foretell events to 
which the others make no reference. The range of 
their vision is indeed immense—extending from the 
earliest ages down to the end of time, and embracing 
the characters, the histories, and the destinies of men 
-and nations in many countries and in successive ages. 
Each of these prophets has his own individuality, and ~ 
speaks or writes after his own fashion. Even when 
. they refer to the same object, their discourses bear all 
the marks of original and independent utterances. 
And yet there is no incongruity or disharmony in 
their manifold and varied announcements. We meet’ 
with nothing that wears the appearance of an isolated: 
representation or a mere happy individual thought. 
All are drawn into one connected whole. All form 
parts of one grand scheme, wonderful ‘alike for its 
vastness and its minuteness. Though comprehend- 
ing an immense range, and diverging in innumerable 
(EOS F 


THE EVIDENCE TO THE TRUTH OF 


ramifications, the whole is composed into one mag- 
nificent system, all the parts of which are related to 
each other, and all bear on ove grand end. Whilst 
the fates of the most noted nations of antiquity are 
more or less fully touched upon, it is to the kingdom 
of God on the earth, and to the Messiah as the 
Founder and Lord of that kingdom, that the pro- 
phetic vision is chiefly turned, and on which it ever 
ultimately rests. Around the Person of the Messiah, 
as the great Central Figure, all the parts of the picture 
are grouped. “To Him gave all the prophets wit- 
“ness ;” and when after a long silence the harp of 
- prophecy was once more struck, it was of Him and 
of His kingdom that its notes were heard to speak. 
The phenomenon thus presented to us is one for 
which it is impossible to account, save on the suppo- 
sition that what the prophets uttered were the oracles 
of Him to whose omniscience all persons and events 
past, present, and to come, in themselves, in their 
mutual relations, and in their relation to His kingdom 
in the world, are ever patent. 

3. A striking characteristic of the predictive prophe- 
cies of Scripture is their definiteness and circumstan- 
tiality, Though conveyed often in language which 
is symbolical, though clothed often in the garb of 
the sublimest poetry, though not unfrequently abrupt, 
impassioned, and even rugged, the utterances of the 
prophets of the Bible can in no case be charged wit 
being vague or indefinite. They are at the farthest 

66 


sare a 


SN Ee ae ee ee ee ee ee Tee ae eee ee 


: ‘ 4 
Se a ee ee ee 


i a le 


CHRISTIANITY SUPPLIED BY PROPHECY. 


possible remove from those oracular utterances which, 
dim, pointless, and general, refer to nothing in par- 
ticular, and may chance to be fulfilled in many differ- 
ent ways. One cannot read the predictive passages 
in the Bible without seeing that they point to some 
special object or event by which alone they are to 
be fulfilled. Sometimes persons are even foretold 
by name, as Cyrus is by Isaiah, sometimes times and 
places are specified when and where the event pre- 
dicted is to take place; but even where such precision. 
is not attempted, even where the object predicted is 
left in obscurity, there is so much of circumstantial 
detail as to indicate that it was not a general or acci- 
dental, but what Bacon calls a punctual fulfilment of his 
prediction, that the prophet would have those to whom 
he delivered it, or for whom he recorded it, to look. 
Now such definiteness and circumstantiality, while 
attesting the genuineness of the prediction, indicate 
also the presence with the prophet of Him who alone 
could enable any man to announce and describe what 
no human intelligence could have foreseen, or conjec- 
tured, or imagined. 

But important as these characteristics of Scripture 
prophecy are in their bearing on the question of the 
Divine origin of the predictions contained in Scripture, 
it is to the fulfilment of these that we must chiefly 
make our appeal in proof of this. It is from their 
fulfilment that their evidential force arises; and could 
this not be shown, it would be of little use to urge 

67 : 


THE EVIDENCE TO'\ THE TRUTH OF 


any other considerations with this view. Now in 
regard to this there are two things especially worthy : 
of being noted. One of these is the completeness 
of their fulfilment. I speak, of course, of such pre- 
dictions as relate to events that are already past, and 
the fulfilment of which, consequently, we are in a 
condition to trace. Of these we may venture to say 
that there is not one which has not been fulfilled in 
the way and according to the manner predicted. In 
respect of this the prophecies of Scripture will bear 
_ the closest investigation; and the more carefully they 
are examined, and the more minutely their corres- 
pondence with the event is scrutinised, the more will 
it become apparent that only as the prophets were 
taught of God, and spoke and wrote as His organs, 
could they so accurately and precisely have foretold 
things to come. So: exact and so complete is the 
correspondence, that whatever obscurity or improba- 
bility may have attached to the predictions at the 
time they were uttered, when read in the light of 
subsequent events they appear more like historical | 
narratives of what is already past, than announce- 
ments of what is to happen in the far-distant future.* 

The other thing noticeable in relation to the fulfil- 
ment of the predictions of Scripture is that this has 


* See this largely illustrated in Bishop Newton’s “ Disserta- 
tions on the Prophecies,” and Dr. Keith’s “ Evidence of the 
Truth of the Christian Religion derived from the Literal Fulfil- 
ment of Prophecy.” 

68 


CHRISLIANTT Y SUPPIALD, BY. PROPHECY. 


not been brought about by persons who knew the 
prediction, and may be supposed to have contributed | _ 
to its fulfilment from a desire to see it fulfilled, but 
in every case has happened in the ordinary course of 
events, in many cases by the concurrence of circum- 
stances apparently purely accidental, and through 
the agency of persons who knew nothing of the 
prediction,—while in not a few instances the main 
instruments of bringing about the fulfilment have been 
persons who, had they foreseen the issue, would have 

een the last to use a single effort in the direction in 
which it lay. Like the Assyrian cf old, whom God 
sent as the instrument of His righteous indignation 
against rebellious Israel, they “meant not so, neither 
did their heart think so.’ They sought but to carry 
out their own designs, and to secure results which their 
own wisdom had devised, or their own lusts and 
passions had led them to desire. In reality they 
accomplished the purposes of God, and brought to 
pass what He had predicted by His prophets; but 
nothing was further from their thoughts and inten- 
tions than this. It must be apparent to every one 
that a prediction fulfilled by such means brings with 
it conclusive evidence that the man by whom it was 
uttered was indeed one who spoke as he was moved 
by the Spirit of God. 

The time has passed when men ventured to pro- 
nounce the Scripture prophecies mere happy conjec- 
tures or lucky forebodings which came to be fulfilled 

: ; 69 


THE. EVIDENCE LO THE TRUTH OF 


<a Ta SOIC DRT OG Se AiG Sa Sa SN ee a 
by chance. Such a supposition can be mathe- 
matically demonstrated to be absurd ; for if we take 
one hundred predictions as to what shall happen in 
the future, and calculate the chances of their being 
all fulfilled according to the laws of chance, we 
shall find that the chances against this are as many 
millions to unity. But the number of predictions in 
Scripture, which can be shown to have been fulfilled, 
greatly exceeds one hundred—to the extent almost of 
twice that sum; so that the chances against their being 
all fulfilled run up to a number so great that it is 
impossible to express it in words. Thus, as has been 
well said, the hazard to which the unbeliever would 
trust in ascribing the fulfilment of the Scripture 
prophecies to chance is “desperate”; for “ the number 
of chances is far greater against him than the number 
of drops in the ocean, although the whole world were 
one globe of water.” * 

The manifest absurdity of this hypothesis i: led 
rationalists of more recent times to renounce it, and 
to endeavour to impair the evidence of prophecy by 
asserting or insinuating that the prediction, in the 
form in which it appears in the Bible, was given forth 
after the event, and therefore is in reality no pre- 
diction at all) There may have been, they admit, 
some vague poetic anticipation uttered in the earlier 
time, but this was turned into a definite prediction 
only after an event which it seemed vaguely to 

* Keith on Prophecy, p. 384, 8th edit. . 
7O 


CHRISTIANTTY SUPPLIED BY PROPHECY. 


describe had happened, by some one who had some 
end to answer by this, and who had skill enough so 
to imitate the style and tone of the earlier writer, that 
he succeeded in passing off his own composition as 
his. Thus, for instance, the prophecies of Isaiah 
concerning the fall of Babylon are supposed to 
have been originally some mere outburst of poetic 
denunciation against the enemy and oppressor of 
Israel, which was many years later, after Babylon 
was taken by Cyrus, expanded and made more defi- 
nite, and then substituted for the original utterance 
in the book of the prophet. It is supposed also that 
books and parts of books were written and inserted 
in the canon, which are the production, not of the 
prophet whose name they bear, but of persons living 
at a much later period, and who wrote after the 
events had occurred which they pretend to predict. 
The prophecies of Scripture are thus shorn of their 
character as predictions, and the writings containing 
them are degraded from their position as genuine 
documents to that of collections of mere forgeries 
more or less cleverly executed. 

Now it is undoubtedly within the limits of a natural 
possibility that such alterations and interpolations of 
the sacred books may have been made, and therefore 
this hypothesis cannot be summarily dismissed as 
absurd. The onus probandt, however, clearly lies here 
on those who make such assertions; they are bound 
not merely to suggest the possibility of such things 

71 e 


LHE EVIDENCE FO THE. TROLTH-OF 


being done, but to show that they have actually been 
done, and that not in one or two instances, but in the 
case of all the predictions of Scripture relating to 
historical events. 

In this they have signally failed. Beyond bold 


assertion, and the setting up of a pseudo-Isaiah, a 


pseudo-Daniel, a second Zechariah, and such-like, 
and the scattering of much learned dust, they have 
done nothing to establish their position. Some of 
their attempts at proof are such patent fallacies, that 
the merest tyro in logic might be ashamed of them. 
When reduced to form, their reasoning is often a 
mere fetitio principit, a reasoning in a circle. These 
are not real predictions, they say, because they were 


written after the event; and when asked for proof 


that they were written after the event, they adduce 
the predictions as containing allusions to that event. 
The denial of the prediction is thus made to rest on 
the posteriority of the book, and the posteriority of 
the book is made to rest on the denial of the :pres 
diction. Reasoning of this sort cannot have any 
weight except with those who have already accepted 
the conclusion it postulates. 

More respect is due to the arguments of those who 
seek to maintain their position by showing that the 
language, style, and sentiments of the part containing 
predictions, are not such as the prophet to whom it is 
ascribed could have used. If this could be shown, a 
strong reason would undoubtedly be given for suspect- 

72 


CARTSTIANILY SUPPLIED BY PROPHECY. 


ing the genuineness of the part libelled. But this is 
a test which requires to be very carefully applied, and 
under strict conditions, else it may lead to conclusions 
arbitrary and unsound; and it is one which, as it 
happens, hardly admits of being applied to the He- 
brew documents, because, from the paucity of these, 
the field is too narrow for a satisfactory induction of 
linguistic facts. To argue that a composition, found 
amongst the acknowledged writings of an author, is 
not his because it contains words or phrases not found 
in these writings, or because words or phrases used in 
them are not found in it, is in the case of any writings 
but precarious reasoning at the best ; but when applied 
to the Hebrew writings, it becomes utterly valueless, 
because we have no reason to believe that we possess 
more than a portion of the vocabulary. of that lan- 
guage.* If, indeed, it could be shown that any word 
occurring in writings ascribed to a certain author was 
entirely unknown in his time, if its invention at a 
later period could be discovered, something would be 
done to bring into doubt the pretensions of the writing. 
But this, in the case of the Hebrew documents, cannot 
be done, and has never been attempted. All that has 
been done is to make collections of words said to be 
peculiar to a writer which are not found in the writings 
ascribed to him, or collections of words found in these 


* See the weighty remarks of Dr. Pusey, “ Minor Prophets,” 
Part V. p. 401, just published, and which I have seen only since 
this lecture was written. 


73 


LHE EVIDENCE TO THE TRUTH OF 


writings which are not found in his acknowledged 
writings, or collections of words used by him which 
are said to be words of a later date than his time, 
because they are not found in books of an earlier 
date. To expect by such means to invalidate a claim 
which has the sanction of centuries of unquestioned 
authority, indicates, on the part of those who indulge 
such an expectation, rather the zeal and enthusiasm 
of the’advocate than the sagacity of the critic or the 
sobriety of the judge.* | 

Attempts have also been made to substantiate the 
charge of interpolation and forgery by showing that 
in the predictive parts of the prophetical books there 
are doctrines propounded which were unknown to the 
Hebrews of the age of the prophet to whom they are 
ascribed. But here also the critic builds on a most 
precarious foundation. For as we do not possess a 


* That the patient research, the keen scrutiny, and the vast 
erudition of hostile critics have not been expended without sug- 
gesting difficulties in the way of the traditionary belief as to the 
genuineness of some of the predictions in the Bible, it would 
be foolish not to admit. But in reference to such the words of 
Bishop Thirlwall, used in his discussion of the Homeric ques- 
tion, may be appropriately cited, and applied sutatis mutandis : 
“This is not a.case where we have to balance two arguments of 
a similar. kind against one another, but where we have on the 
one side a mass of positive testimony, on the other some facts 
which, through our imperfect knowledge of the poet’s [prophet’s } 
life and times, we are unable to account for. Where this is so, 
there can be little doubt which way the principles of sound 
criticism require us to decide.”—/7rs¢. of Greece, i. 276. 


74 


CHRISTIANITY SUPPLIED BY PROPHECY. 


full and exact history of doctrine among the Hebrews, 
we are not in circumstances to say at what time any 
special doctrine began to be familiarly known among 
them ; and as respects those which are adduced as 
having been borrowed by them from other nations 
at a later period of their history, it may be shown of 
some that the alleged identity does not exist, while 
in regard to others the probability that the Hebrews 
were the lenders and not the borrowers is at least as 
great as the probability of the reverse. 

The difficulties attaching to the belief that the 
Hebrew Scriptures have been interpolated in the 
manner alleged, are so great that the wonder is that 
any can seriously entertain it. He who accepts this 
must believe that the Jews were so careless about 
their sacred books, that they allowed them to be 
recklessly tampered with by every literary adventurer 
who chose to exercise his skill in imitating the style 
and manner of any of their great prophets: a suppo- 
sition which the well-known care with which all nations 
that have sacred books watch over their integrity 
renders improbable, and which the reverence with 
which the Jews regarded the Scriptures, the jealousy 
with which they watched over them, and the almost 
superstitious dread with which they viewed the 
omission or alteration of a single jot or tittle in the 
writing, render utterly incredible. Such an one must 
believe also that the later writers not only had the 
audacity to give forth their writings as those of one 

75 


THE: EVIDENCE: LO; THE-TRULH. OF 


of the great prophets of their nation, but had the in- 
conceivable ability to persuade the religious rulers of 
the nation to accept their forgeries as genuine, to care- 
fully insert them among the acknowledged writings 
of the prophet, and to send them forth as genuine 
parts of the canon. ~He must believe also, that the 
writers were men of the loftiest genius, capable not 
only of so closely imitating the style of. thought and 
language of some of .the greatest of the prophets, 
and so throwing themselves into the current of their 
thought and representation, that no discrepancy is 
discernible between what they have interpolated and 
the original writing, but in many instances of far sur- 
passing them; for there can be no doubt that some of 
xlvi., for 


the passages pronounced spurious (Isa. xl. 
instance) must be regarded as the very masterpieces 
of Hebrew literature; and yet so little were they 
esteemed by the Jews, that they have not cared to 
preserve their names, while the names of all the other 
prophets have been sedulously preserved. He must 
also believe that all these interpolations were intro- 
duced, and all these forged additions to the writings 
of the prophets made, during the interval which 
elapsed between the return of the Jews from Baby- 
lon and the execution of the Septuagint translation 
into Greek of the Old Testament Scriptures in which 
they are all contained, at a time when the public 
mind was keenly awake to the importance of deter- 


mining what writings were to be regarded as sacred, 
76 


CHRISILTANIL YY  SOLPITED BY PROPHECY. 


and when the best men of the nation, the men most 
noted for learning, judgment, and piety, were engaged 
in settling on a permanent basis the canon of Scrip- 
ture. That at such a time, and under such circum- 


stances, illegitimate additions, so extensive and so - 


important, should be made to the sacred books of the 
Jews without being detected, and should be incorpo- 
rated without question with the sacred canon, ap- 
pears to me utterly incredible; and that this should 
have been believed by men of learning and ability 
I can regard in no other light than as affording 
another illustration of Pascal’s famous apophthegm, 
‘Les incredules sont les plus credules.” 

It must also be noted that even if the latest date 
that can be pretended for these writings be conceded, 
there will still remain predictions which must be 
admitted to have been uttered and recorded long 
before what they foretell became matter of history. 
No ingenuity has succeeded in disposing of Daniel's 
four great monarchies, without admitting the fourth 
to be that of Rome ;* and at the latest date that can 
be assigned for the writing of the book of Daniel, the 
Roman power had not made itself known beyond 
the confines of Italy, and certainly no human sagacity 
could have conjectured that the then comparatively 
insignificant community on the banks of the Tiber 
was to become that great world-power, strong as iron, 
that was to break in pieces and bruise the nations, 


* See Dr. Pusey, “ Daniel the Prophet,” sect. ii. 
77 


LHE EVIDENCE: TO FHISTRULH SOF 


It is impossible to assign any date to the prophecies 
of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, which shall place 
them posterior to the destruction of Tyre, the laying 
waste of Idumea, the dispersion of the Jews, and the 
desolation of the land of Judea; and yet these pro- 
phets have distinctly announced in regard to these, 
even to minute particulars, all that we see at the 
present day fulfilled. The predictions in the Old 
Testament concerning the Messiah were undoubtedly 
recorded centuries before they were fulfilled in the 
Person, character, and work of Jesus the Christ. 
And our Lord’s own predictions concerning Himself 
and His religion, and concerning the fate of Jerusalem, 
—all of which we see fulfilled, or in the course of being 
fulfilled—cannot, without violating all probability, 
be regarded as fabricated by His disciples after His 
death, and imputed to Him, but must be accepted as 
uttered by Himself during His ministry on earth, 
while as yet the things foretold were hidden in the 
future.* Here, then, are predictions, the genuineness 
of which cannot be disputed; and as on these the 
argument from prophecy may be safely based, it 
seems hardly worth the objector’s while to strive to 


undermine the credit of the rest. 

But whilst the attempt to show that the predictions 
of Scripture are not real predictions, but are prophecies 
after the event, has signally failed, the attempt itself 
affords the strongest testimony to the force of the 


* See the author’s ‘“‘ Christ and Christianity,” Part II, ch. iii. 
78 


apeN ; 
ie 


CHKRISTTANTITY SUPPLIED BV’ PROPHECY. 


argument founded on these prophecies. For were 
not that argument in itself irrefragable, it would not 
be necessary to resort to such an expedient in order 
to set it aside. Were the predictions less remarkable 
for fulness and precision, or were the fulfilment of 
them less certain or less capable of being pointed out, 
or did the fulfilment of prophecy afford no sure evi- 
dence of the Divinity of the prediction and the Divine 
commission of the man who uttered it, the whole 
argument might be swept aside as baseless or falla- 
cious. /\n edifice built on the sand may be contemptu- 
ously left to its fate; when men find it necessary 
to assail an edifice with axes and hammers, their 
efforts show that they feel it is built upon a rock, and 
that the pillars of it are strong. 

The earliest of the Christian apologists whose 
works have come down to us* assigns the palm to 

* Justin Martyr, Afol. i. c. 30. So also Pascal: “La plus 
grande des preuves de Jésus Christ sont les prophéties. C’est 
aussi a quoi Dieu a le plus pourvu; car l’événement qui les 
a remplis est un miracle subsistant depuis la naissance de lEglise 
jusques ala fin. .. . Quand un seul homme aurait fait un livre des 
predictions de Jésus Christ pour le temps et pour la maniere, et 
que Jésus Christ serait venu conformément a ces prophéties, ce 
serait une force infinie. Mais ilya bien plusici. C’est une suite 
@Vhommes, durant quatre mille ans, qui constamment et sans 
variation viennent l'un ensuite de autre prédire ce méme événe- 
ment. C’est un peuple tout entier qui annonce, et qui subsiste 
depuis quatre mille années pour rendre en corps temoignage des 
assurances quils en ont, et dont ils ne peuvent étre divertis par 


quelques menaces et persécutions qu’on leur fasse : ceci est tout 
autrement considérable,”—Pensées, t. ii, pp. 270, 271, ed, Faugére. 


79 


THE: PVIPRNCEATO THE TROTH OTe 


prophecy as affording the greatest and surest demon- 
stration of Divine revelation. Without going so far 
as this, it is safe to say that in two respects it possesses 
special importance. In the /jirst place, the evidence 
it supplies is derived from facts which are subject 
to our own observation. We need no testimony to 
assure us either of the prediction or of its fulfilment. 
The former we find recorded in the book, the latter 
we see actually before us in the facts of history or 
the existing condition of communities or nations. 
Prophecy thus gives us, if we may so speak, ocular 
demonstration of the Divinity of our religion.’ In the 
second place, prophecy not only proves by its fulfil- 
ment that God was with the man by whom it was | 
uttered, and thereby shows him to be entitled to 
demand our submission to his words as the words of 
God, but it exemplzfies the fact it is designed to confirm 
—viz., that God can convey, and has conveyed, to the 
mind of His creature knowledge so as to enable the - 
latter to convey it to others. It thus carries us a step 
further than miracles ; and if it does not more certainly 
prove the presence of God with the teacher who on 
the ground of his supernatural powers demands our 
submission, it at least prepares us to receive his lesson, 
seeing he has already given us a specimen of how 
God may speak to us through one who is of the same 
nature as ourselves.* 

Prophecy may thus claim a place of primary im- 

* © Christ and Christianity,” p. 248. 
80 


CORISTIANITY SOPPLIED BV PROPHECY. 


portance among the evidences of Christianity. On 
it and on miracles the claims of our religion to be 
reverenced as Divine chiefly rest.. Other arguments 
come in as corroborative of the arguments which 
these supply; but it is upon these that we must 
ultimately fall back, if we are to maintain the position 
that the Bible is Divine. And this is a point to 
which in the. present day it is especially important 
that prominence should be given. For there are 
many who profess themselves ready to accept Chris- 
tianity as on the whole true, who will not admit it to 
be Divine. They receive it, not because it comes to 
them as a revelation from God, but because they find 
it in accordance with what their own reason dictates, 
or their own religious feeling approves. Such persons 
really believe themselves, and not the Bible; and as 
the Bible claims to speak to us with authority, as 
containing the word of God, its advocates must not 
shrink from asserting this claim, and must be ready 
to offer proof in support of it. But what shall authen- 
ticate such a claim, save some outward sign that shall 
prove that God was with the men who uttered what 
the Bible contains? ‘ Adequate proof of a Divine 
revelation,’ says a distinguished Italian philosopher, 
“cannot consist in ideas, because natural ideas can- 
not demonstrate a fact above nature, such as is the 
extraordinary infusion of mysterious truths; nor in 
natural facts which are incompetent. to certify and 
place on a solid basis a succession invisible and of a 
31 G 


THE EVIDENCE. TO? THE FRUTH OF 


different kind; but it must emerge from supernatural 
phenomena which shall express sensibly and indubi- 
tably the internal correspondent fact, and so become 
signs of its reality.”* Such a sign, prophecy, when 
fulfilled, undoubtedly gives. As has been justly said, 
“ Of all the attributes of the God of the universe, His 
prescience has bewildered and baffled the most all 
the powers of human conception ; and an evidence of 
the exercise of this perfection in the revelation of 
what the Infinite Mind alone could make’ known, is 
the ‘seal7of God, which can never be counterfeited, 
affixed to the truth which it attests.” This seal God 
has been pleased to set broad and clear upon Holy 
Scripture. The number, the variety, the circumstan- 
tiality, the harmony of the Scripture prophecies, with 
the manifest fulfilment of those of them that point to 
times already past, give them a weight and force as 
evidences of the Divinity of Scripture which is not 
to. be. evaded: or resisted: « Let them not, then, be 
ignored, or passed by as unworthy of notice in this 
respect. If the argument they supply cannot be 
fairly refuted, let it be honestly submitted to, and let 
the conclusion to which it points be accepted ; let 
Holy Scripture have its just claims acknowledged ; 

* Gioberti, “ Teorica del Sovranaturale,” p. 131. Torino, 1850. 

+ Keith, p.9. . “ Quin etiam hoc non dubitans dixerim: Si 
unum aliquid ita sit praedictum, preesensumque, ut cum eve- 
nerit, ita cadat ut praedictum sit, neque in eo quidquam casu 
et fortuito factum esse appareat, esse certe divinationem, idque 


esse omnibus confitendum.”— CICERO, De Divan. 1. 55. 
82 . 


~ 


CHRISTIANITY SUPPLIED BY PROPHECY. 


let it not only be honoured as a book venerable for 
its antiquity, and as containing much that is interest- 
ing and valuable, but be reverenced as a book “ given 
by inspiration of God;” and let the religion it 
teaches not be received with cold courtesy as on the 
whole true, but be reverently embraced as indeed 
Divine,—a religion, the reception of which makes men 
wise unto salvation, and which it is at the peril of all 
to whom it is made known to refuse or neglect. 

I have now gone through the course of argumenta- 
tion proposed. On such a subject there is nothing 
novel to be advanced—at least, if one confine oneself, 
as.I have done, to the purely argumentative bearings 
of the question. If I have succeeded in placing these 
clearly before you, my aim has been attained. 


83 


THE POSITIVE. EVIDENCE IN VPROOF:OF ‘2Hf 
HISTORICAL TRUTH OF THE MIRACLES OF 
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


‘BY THE 
“REV. €C.- A. ROW, M.A; 
Prebendary of St. Paul's, 


Author of “The Nature and Extent of Divine Inspiration,” “The Sesus of the 
Evangelists,’ “The Moral Teaching of the New Testament,” “The Super- 
natural in the New Testament, Possible, Credible, and Historical,” etc. 


LHE POSITIVE EVIDENCE IN: PROOE«OF 
PE EST ORICAL TRUTH VOL THE teen 4: 
CLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


HE subject which it is my duty to treat in 
this Lecture involves, not a mere accessory of 
Christianity, but its essence. A Christianity that is 
devoid of the miraculous must be one from which 
all supernatural elements must be eliminated. This 
can only be accomplished by the removal out of 
it of the entire portraiture of the divine Christ, 
as He is delineated in the Gospels, and the substi- 
tution for it of a purely human Jesus. In plain 
words, our residuum will be a number of elevated 
moral precepts in a very disjointed form, and a few 
very uncertain facts. With the person of the divine 
Christ, all that is peculiar to Christianity—I may say 
its very essence—will disappear, and with it all pretext 
that it isa divine revelation. Christianity will then 
differ from ordinary human systems in that it has 
falsely made a divine life the essence and centre of its 
teaching. As my subject, which is to adduce histo- 
rical evidence of the presence in it of the supernatural 
87 


POSITIVE EVIDENCE IN. PROOF OF 


and the divine, is one which necessarily involves a 
treatment of considerable length, I will address my- 
self to it without any introductory remarks. 


The Position of the Argument. 


In treating of the historical evidence of the miracles 
alleged to have been wrought in attestation of Chris- 
tianity, the question immediately presents itself, Is it 
necessary that the Christian advocate should adduce 
direct proof that every one of the miracles recorded 
in the New Testament was an actual occurrence? If 
this is not necessary (as it clearly is not), for which of 
them is this proof required in order that the claims of 
Christianity to be a divine revelation may be esta- 
blished ? The New Testament answers this question 
in no ambiguous terms. While it affirms that the 
entire Person and work of Jesus belong to the regions 
of the supernatural and the divine, and that nume- 
rous miracles were wrought by Him and His early 
followers, it is a remarkable fact that it stakes the 
truth of Christianity on the performance of a single 
miracle alone—the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This 
it appeals to as the one great evidential miracle, in 
passages far too numerous to quote within the limits 
of a lecture. ; 

‘It will be readily conceded that all supernatural oc- 
currences, and even very extraordinary events, demand 
an attestation far stronger than is required to establish 


the truth of ordinary ones. As the operations of the 
88 


THE NEW TESTAMENT MIRACLES. 


universe are undoubtedly carried on by the action of 
forces which energise in conformity with invariable 
laws, it requires a great additional strength of testi- 
mony to prove that an event of a different order has 
actually occurred. But if evidence can be adduced 
that is adequate to prove the occurrence of a single 
miracle wrought in attestation of a revelation, it places 
all other supernatural events in connection with that 
revelation on the same level as the ordinary facts of 
history ; and the same evidence which will avail to 
prove the one will be fully sufficient to establish the 
other. The reason of this is, that it removes the a@ 
priori objection against such occurrences. Thus if 
the resurrection of Jesus Christ can be established as 
a fact, it becomes far more probable than otherwise 
that a number of other supernatural actions were 
performed by Him, and we can accept them on the 
same evidence as we require for ordinary facts. The 
controversy therefore between Christians and unbe- 
lievers as an historical question resolves itself into 
this: Is the evidence that Jesus Christ rose from the 
dead sufficient to prove that it was an actual occur- 
rence? | 

Modern unbelief at once attempts to bar our 
progress by affirming, on high @ prior? grounds, that 
all miracles and supernatural occurrences are alike 
incredible, notwithstanding any amount of historical 
testimony that can be adduced in their favour. If 
this be so, all historical inquiry respecting them is a 

89 


POSITIVE EVIDENCE IN PROOF OF : 
SAR ET Wie Sheng NP oa 2 eR ON a 
simple waste of time; for nothing can be more cer- 
tain than that that which is impossible can never have 
taken place. It is clear, however, that it is impossible 
for me to enter on this abstract discussion in a single 
lecture. It could only be dealt with in a course. I 
must assume, therefore, that I have proved that this 
position is utterly untenable in my work on “The 
Supernatural in the New Testament.” It will be suf- 
ficient in this place to observe that the principles 
on which it is affirmed that miracles are impossible 
would be fatal to our acceptance of all facts which lie 
outside the bounds of our previous experience. 

For the purposes of this lecture, therefore, I must 
take it for granted that miracles are not impossible, 
and that their occurrence is a matter of purely his- 
torical evidence. 

Further: let it be carefully observed that the evi- 
dence which is required to prove the truth of any fact 
depends for its amount on the degree of the proba- 
bility of its occurrence. .The very same action which 
under one set of circumstances would possess such a 
degree of incredibility, that we should refuse to accept 
it except on overwhelming evidence, we should accept 
as true under wholly different circumstances, on the 
evidence which would satisfy us of the truth of a fact 
in common life. Thus a miracle viewed as a bare 
occurrence in external nature may be an event in 
the highest degree improbable; but if we allow that 
there is a God who is the moral Governor of the uni- 

go 


THE NEW TESTAMENT MIRACLES. 


verse, and that man stands in urgent need of some 
divine interposition in his favour (which those who. 
accept Mr. Mill’s picture of his condition as given in 
his posthumous Essays will not deny), then a miracle 
viewed as a means of attesting a revelation loses a 
large portion of its antecedent improbability, and 
becomes a question of purely historical evidence. 
With these preliminary but necessary remarks, I 
now address myself to my more immediate subject. 


Lhe Church as a visible Institution: its bearing on 
the Argument. 


First: We Christians are in possession of the 
ground. The onus of proof lies on our opponents. 
Let this never be overlooked in this controversy. The 
Christian Church exists as a fact. It can be shown, 
on evidence which is overwhelming, that it has existed 
for more than eighteen hundred years. We can prove 
beyond the power of gainsaying, that this institution 
had no existence at a particular date—say A.D. 20. 
We can show on no less certain evidence, that it was 
in existence, and in a state of most vigorous growth, 
years prior to A.D. 54, the date of the earliest of the 
Pauline Epistles. Probably not one unbeliever will 
dispute these facts. It is no less certain that, from 
the first dawn of its existence, this society has affirmed 
that its renewed life and energy, which was developed 
immediately after the crucifixion of Jesus, was due to 
the belief of His followers that He had risen from the 

gI 


POSITIVE EVIDENCE. IN: PROOF OF 


dead. On this was founded the whole of His subse- 
quent Messianic claims, and the existence of the 
Church as a society. 

Now observe, that although this belief of His 
followers does not prove the resurrection to be true, 
yet, supposing the fact to have been an actual 
occurrence, it offers an account of the origin of 
this great society, which even philosophy itself must 
allow to be entirely adequate for its origination. So far 
then we are in possession of the ground. The Church 
has ever ascribed its own origin to a cause fully ade- 
quate to account for its birth and subsequent history. 
If then this account is affirmed to be false, it is incum- 
bent on those who make this affirmation to propound 
-some other, which will fully satisfy the conditions of 
the case. Philosophic history cannot refuse to accept 
this challenge; for the Church is no abstract idea, 
but an institution which has exerted the mightiest 
influence on mankind—which originated at a definite 
period of historic time, and in the midst of well-known 
forces both of the intellectual, spiritual, and moral 
worlds. If it were to do so, it would confess itself in 
the presence of a moral miracle; for on the principles 
of unbelief all human developments have been the 
result of known forces acting in accordance with in- 
variable laws, which it is the business of philosophy 
to unravel. It is absurd therefore for unbelievers to 
ask us to reject a cause which was adequate to have 
created the Church, and which this society has ever 

g2 


THE NEW TESTAMENT MIRACLES. 


affirmed to have been the sole ground of its origin, 
until they can propound another which will stand the 
tests of a sound philosophy. To do them justice, 
they have not been slow to make the attempt; but 
as yet they have not succeeded in propounding any ~ 
theory of its origin which commands the assent of even 
a majority among themselves, except the vague charges 
that it was due to credulity and enthusiasm. On the 
contrary, their theories on this subject are as shifting 
as the sands that are on the sea-shore; and one is 
propounded only to be abandoned and succeeded by 
another. Until unbelief can effect an adequate solution 
of this problem, the historical presumption must remain, 
that the account that the Church has ever given is the 
true one. Otherwise it is only to ask us to accept a 
moral and spiritual miracle in place of an actual 
resurrection from the dead. 

The position which Christians occupy is clear. We 
are fully entitled on grounds of reason to accept the 
account which the Church has ever given of its origin as 
the true one, until unbelievers are able to prove that 
there were in activity at the commencement of our era 
a number of forces which, according to the known laws 
of the moral and spiritual worlds, were adequate to 
have caused both its existence and its energetic life. 
Until unbelief has solved this problem, it cannot help 
contemplating the Church and its existence with bated 
breath, as having originated in some inscrutable cause, 
into which it cannot penetrate. On the other hand, 

se ; 


POSITIVE EVIDENCE IN PROOF OF 


if we ask unbelievers to accept our position, we 
are bound to show that the facts which the Church 
alleges to be the ground of its existence rest on the 
highest form of historical testimony. 

In examining the evidence on which the great facts. 
of Christianity rest, it is hardly possible to over-esti- 
mate the importance of the existence of the Church as 
a visible institution, as constituting one of the chief 
factors in our historical inquiry. This has been far too 
frequently overlooked. We have not to trace the his- 
tory of the origin of a dogma, which may be lost in the 
obscurities of the past, but of a mighty institution 
which sprang inta existence at a well-known period of 
history; and which has acted on human nature with a 
power compared with which that of every other insti- 
tution has been feebleness. Although in form and 
constitution unlike the kingdoms of the world, it has 
taken a place beside them, and survived the mightiest 
of them. Though of the humblest origin, it has over- 
shadowed every other institution of the ancient world ; 
it has outlived the civilization out of which it grew, and 
it has created a new one. The modern nations have 
lived with an intense vitality; yet the Christian 
Church has entwined itself around every portion of 
their historical development, and has affixed its 
impress on their social life, their literature, their art, 
and their philosophy. The historian who should 
attempt to give us a history of the modern world, 
from which the influence of Christianity was excluded, 

94 


THE NEW TESTAMENT MIRACLES. 


_ would present us with a husk from which the kernel 
has been extracted. 

Further, this great society originated neither in the 
pre-historic nor in the semi-historic ages, but in the 
very centre of a period pre-eminently historic. There 
is probably no period of time prior to that when the 
printing press assumed its full activity, when our 
historical materials are. equally abundant. We have 
a full acquaintance with the various intellectual and 
moral forces then in active operation, and with the 
various systems of religious thought. Our materials 
therefore are very abundant for forming a judgment 
as to the adequacy of the forces which unbelievers 
affirm to have created the Church, or whether any 
other force then existing was able to have done 
so, except that to which it has ever assigned its 
origin, 

I am aware that it has often been urged by 
opponents that the number of allusions to Christi- 
anity in pagan writers during the earlier period of 
its existence are very inconsiderable, and that we 
are obliged to rely almost exclusively on Christian 
sources of information. How, I ask, could it be 
otherwise? Was it to be expected that pagan 
writers would notice the progress of a religious 
society for which they felt a profound contempt, and 
whose principles they were unable to comprehend, 
until its existence was forced on their attention? Who 
but those who were directly interested in this new 

95 


POSITIVE EVIDENCE IN PROOF OF 


society would be likely to give an account of its 
origin and growth? Surely those who were chiefly 
interested in it were likely to give us what they 
believed to be the true one. There is one remark- 
able circumstance to which I would draw your 
earnest attention in connection with this subject. 
More recent pagan literature presents us with a far 
more remarkable phenomenon. Even when Christi- 
anity was approaching the hour of its triumph, 
heathen writers seemed all but unconscious of the 
mighty forces which must have been in activity every- 
where around them, and which shortly afterwards 
subverted their entire system. 


The Nature and Value of an Historical Document. 


I will now proceed to take a brief survey of the 
general character and value of the historical materials 
at our command, | 

If the four Gospels are accepted as historical, the 
controversy before us is ended. Nothing can be 
clearer than that they are instinct with a supernatural 
element, which it is impossible to get rid of by any 
carping at details. The central figure in them, the 
portraiture of Jesus Christ our Lord, belongs essen- 
tially to the regions of the superhuman and the 
divine. This being so, unbelievers are unanimous in 
denying their historical value, and have concentrated 
the whole of their critical power.in attempting to 
prove that their authorship is uncertain, and that we 

96 


THE NEW TESTAMENT MIRACLES. 


have no reliable evidence that they were in existence 
prior to the commencement or the middle of the 
second century. This being the case, I shall make 
no use of them as historical documents in the present 
lecture; but I shall establish the truth of the great. 
facts of Christianity on grounds quite independent 
of their testimony. When these are proved to be 
-historically certain, we shall then be in a position to 
restore the Gospels to their place in history. 

While I take this position, let it be clearly under- 
stood that I am profoundly sensible of the importance 
of the question of the date, authorship, and character 
of our present Gospels. To us Christians these things 
are a matter of profound interest. But what I am 
particularly anxious to guard against is the idea— 
even if the assertions of unbelievers were correct; that 
we have no reliable evidence to prove that they were 
in existence prior to the first half of the second 
century—that the historical truth of the great facts 
on which Christianity rests is compromised by the 
comparatively late date of their publication, or the un- 
certainty as to the persons who may have been their 
actual authors. This is a ground which has been greatly 
overlooked by both sides in the present controversy. 
Yet it is a vital one. What I affirm is that we can 
prove the truth of the facts independently of their 
testimony. Let me suppose, for the sake of argument, 
that the apparent references in the writings of Justin 
Martyr are insufficient to establish the fact that he 
| 97 Hes 


POSITIVE EVIDENCE IN PROOF OF 


had our present Gospels before him. Yet it is clear 
that he had written documents of some kind, which 
were narratives of the actions and teaching of Jesus 
Christ; nor is it less certain that these accounts 
agreed in all their main outlines with those contained 
in our present Gospels. Justin only refers to ¢hree 
unimportant facts which we do not read of in our 
Gospels; and assuming that the apparent references. 
to things contained in them amount to about two 
hundred, it follows that the documents which Justin 
had before him, whatever they may have been, only 
contained statements differing from those of our 
Evangelists in the proportion of three to two hundred, 
or one and a half per cent. This is quite sufficient for 
all the purposes of history. The same remark is true 
of all the early Christian writers. If they had not our 
Gospels before them, they had written and traditionary 
accounts agreeing in all their chief outlines with those 
which we now possess. Viewing the question as an 
historical one, we require nothing more. 

The position which I am prepared to take is as 
follows. We have indisputable historical evidence 
that there was handed down in the Church a tradi- 
tionary history, or one partly oral and partly written, 
and accepted by all the great communities of Chris-_ 
tians, which in all its chief features agreed with the 
accounts contained in our present Gospels; and that 
this can be proved to be the same as that which was 
agcepted by the original followers of Jesus, as a true 

98 


THE NEW TESTAMENT MIRACLES. 


account of His teaching and ministry. The docu- 
ments which supply us with this proof are the chief 
epistles of the New Testament; nearly all of which 
even unbelievers are compelled to assign to a period 
when the traditional reminiscences of the Church 
must have possessed the utmost freshness. 

Four of the most important epistles which have been 
attributed to St. Paul are unanimously admitted even > 
by unbelievers to have been written by that apostle. 
These are the two to the Corinthians, and that to the 
Romans, and the Galatians. These were certainly 
written within about twenty-eight years of the date of 
the crucifixion. The two to the Thessalonians are ofa 
still earlier date. Their genuineness has been denied 
by some; but it is admitted by many eminent unbe- 
lieving critics that the grounds on which their authen- 
ticity has been denied are utterly inadequate. In fact, 
they bear indisputable marks of the great apostle’s 
mind, such as cou!d be hit by no forger. I shall there- 
fore take it for granted that they are Paul’s, dating 
about the year A.D. 54, and that they form the earliest 
documents of Christianity. Two other letters may also 
be assigned to the apostle with the utmost confidence, 
dating a few years later: that to the Philippians, and 
to Philemon. Critics have been found to call these 
in question—(what, in fact, have they not called in 
question ?)—the former on the alleged ground that the 
doctrinal views of the epistle are in advance of those 
held by the apostle. The reader, however, who has 

99 


POSITIVE EVIDENCE- IN PROOF OF 


made himself master of his four great epistles, and of 
the indications of St. Paul’s individuality which they 
afford, will feel it one of the greatest of certainties 
that these two epistles are the genuine products of St. 
Paul’s mind. We have therefore, in all, eight letters 
written by the apostle within thirty-two years of the 
crucifixion. Besides these, two more—viz., that to the 
Ephesians, and to the Colossians—are accepted by a 
‘critic so eminent as Rénan as his. To these must be 
added one document of a different kind: the Apoca- 
lypse. This the various schools of unbelief are unani- 
mous in accepting as the work of the apostle John, 
and composed prior to the year A.D. 70; and, in fact, 
to be the only book of the New Testament which was 
written by one of the original apostles of Jesus, and 
an eye-witness of His ministry. . 
Although the other writings of the New Testament 
are denied by unbelievers to have been composed 
by the persons whose names they bear, yet this by 
no means deprives them of a high historical value. 
Several of them are admitted to belong to the earliest — 
times of Christianity; and they must consequently 
have been written when the traditions of the Church 
possessed the utmost freshness. Thus, for example, 
although the Epistle to the Hebrews was, in all pro-— 
bability, not written by Paul, the majority of critics 
are of opinion that its author was a person who was 
in close communion with the Pauline mind; and the 
Epistle of Clement proves that it isa work of primitive 
100 


THE NEW TESTAMENT MIRACLES. 


antiquity. The Epistle of James is a document which 
must have been composed prior to the time when the 
Church had finally separated from the Synagogue, and 
is a monument of primitive Jewish Christianity. The 
First Epistle of Peter is not only supported by strong 
external testimony as being the work of that apostle; 
but when its internal structure is minutely examined, 
it bears the clearest indications of the presence of the 
individuality of the Peter of the Gospels, such as no 
bungling forger of the ancient world would have been 
able to have hit. It is clear, also, that these writings, 
be their authors who they may, clearly reflect the 
genuine sentiments of the persons who composed 
them. 

Next, let us observe that the whole of these writings 
must have been composed within that period when the 
traditionary reminiscences of the life of Jesus must 
have possessed the utmost freshness. The chief facts 
which formed the foundation of the Church’s existence 
could not by any possibility have passed away from the 
recollection of its chief members; or wholly different 
ones have been substituted for the true. On this point 
I shall shelter myself behind the high authority of 
Sir G. C. Lewis, who has thoroughly investigated the 
value of tradition as a means of transmitting histo- 
rical truth in his great work on the credibility of 
the early Roman history. It will be only neces- 
sary to refer to his conclusions en this subject. 
His opinions on this point have peculiar value, 

101 


POSITIVE EVIDENCE I[N PROOF OF 


because they were not formed in reference to any 
religious controversy. He lays down, as is well 
known, that tradition is a reliable informant as to all 
the great facts of history for a period varying from_ 
one hundred to one hundred and twenty years; and 
that a historian who wrote within that period had 
within his reach ample means of trustworthy informa- 
tion about all important events, supposing him to have 
conscientiously used that which was at his command. 
_ Let it be observed that this rule is true with respect 
to all great events of ordinary history, though during 
the latter parts of this period confusion may get into 
the minor details, But it is most important to observe 
that bodies of men which possess a kind of corporate 
life, possess a far greater power of accurately trans- 
mitting a traditionary history than individuals. This 
is greatly increased when the facts themselves form 
the groundwork of their corporate existence. Of all 
the societies that have ever existed, this has been pre- 


’ eminently the case with the Christian Church. This 


society is distinguished from all others by this most 
remarkable circumstance—which is: absolutely unique 
in the history of institutions—that its existence and 
corporate life are founded on the facts of the life of 
an individual. On the keeping of these actively in 
remembrance its entire vitality depended. Induced 
by attachment to the person of its Founder, every 
member of it had forsaken his former -associations, 


and had joined this despised and persecuted society. 
102 


THE NEW TESTAMENT MIRACTLES. 


It was necessary, therefore, that every convert 
should be instructed in the chief events of its. 
Founder’s life; for these, and not a body of dog- 
matic statements, formed the bond of union in the 
new society, and the life of its individual members. 
This being so, it would have been impossible, while 
the grandchildren of the original followers of Jesus 
were alive, to have palmed off on the Church a false 
for a true account of its origin, or of the chief events in 
the life of its Founder. JI by no means wish to affirm 
that His followers may not have been mistaken as to 
the nature of some of those facts: as, for instance, that 
they may have supposed that some events were miracu- _ 
lous which were not really so. But as to whether Jesus 
Himself laid claim to the possession of supernatural 
powers, an error was simply impossible. The only 
alternative which is open is, that either He or they 
were deceived as to the reality of this power, and 
mistook false miracles for true ones. 

Let me now draw your attention to the shortness 
of the interval which separates these writings from the 
events in question. Two of our documents date 
within twenty-four years of the crucifixion; four 
within twenty-eight years; two within thirty-two 
years ; and one within forty of- that event. All these 
are unquestionably genuine. Several of those whose 
authorship is disputed must have been composed only 
a few years subsequently to the latest of these dates. 


At such short intervals after the event, the Church 
103 


POSITIVE EVIDENCE IN PROOF OF 


must have possessed the utmost freshness of tradi- 
tional recollection. 

Let us try to realise what these periods mean. 
When we speak of events nearly two thousand years 
old, we are in danger of losing ourselves in a misty 
haziness. Twenty-four years is about the interval 
which separates us who are in the fullest enjoyment 
of our faculties from the first International Exhi- 
bition. Can any of our memories fail respecting it ? 
Is there any room for myth or legend about the 
matter? Twenty-eight years separate us from the 
expulsion of Louis Philippe from the throne of 
France. A few weeks ago I conversed with a person 
who waited on him and his Queen, immediately after 
their first landing in England in their assumed charac- 
ter of Mr. and Mrs. Smith. About thirty-two years 
divide us, by a single year, from the imposition of the 
income-tax. The period of forty years, which sepa- 
rates the Book of Revelation from the crucifixion, is 
just the interval which separates us from the last year 
but one of the reign of Wiliam IV., and the discus- 
sions on the Irish Municipal Corporations Bill, which 
occurred when I was an undergraduate at Oxford. 
I ask, therefore, whether while we are living, and in 
possession of our faculties, it would be possible for 
any one toimpose on us a false account respecting any 
of the main facts connected with these events for the 
true one? Is it conceivable that the early followers 
of Jesus felt a less lively interest in the events of His 

104 


THE NEW TESTAMENT MIRACLES. 


ministry, or in the facts which imparted its new life 
to the Church,, than we do in these ordinary facts of 
history to which I have referred ?—that they could 
have become oblivious as to their real nature, or that 
those who had forsaken all to join the new society 
could have been ignorant of the reasons which had 
induced them. to submit to this great sacrifice ? 


Lhe Special Value of St. Paul’s Epistles as Histo- 
vical Documents. 


These writings, therefore, belong to the highest 
class of contemporaneous historical documents, They 
are letters ; and I ask you to observe that no historical 
documents are of higher value than original letters 
written by active agents in events. All modern histo- 
rians are deeply sensible of their high importance. 
One most valuable point in them is that their allusions 
to events are nearly always incidental. Such a mode 
of reference constitutes the strongest proof that the 
writer and his correspondents were both thoroughly 
acquainted with them, and mutually admitted the:.. 
truth. But they also admit us to view the secret 
springs and motives of actions. When, as is the case 
with the Pauline epistles, they contain striking delinea- 
tions of the character of the writer, this affords us the 
peculiar advantage of being able to place the author in 
the witness-box, and of subjecting him toa rigid cross- 
examination. In all these points of view they possess 
a great superiority as evidence over formal histories. 

105 


POSITIVE EVIDENCE. IN. PROOF QF 


But these letters contain a guarantee of truthful- 
ness as to their statements of facts which is without 
example in any other similar compositions. It may 
be objected that a letter only reflects the peculiar 
opinions of the writer and his friends ; and that, if St. 
Paul adopted a peculiar Christianity of his own, these 
letters will only put us in possession of the views of 
St. Paul and his converts who had learned their 
Christianity from him. Happily, however, the longest 
of these letters is written to a church which he had 


never visited —viz., that of Rome—and which certainly 
derived its Christianity from a source quite independent 
of the apostle. It follows, therefore, that when he 
makes incidental allusions to the facts on which 
Christianity was founded, these facts must have been 
accepted as true both by St. Paul and the members 
of this church; and that they must have formed the 
sroundwork of the Christianity of its founders, and of 
the-church or churches of which they were originally 
members. This carries up the acceptance of these 
facts as the foundation of Christianity to a far earlier 
date than that of the composition of the Epistle. 

But the two Epistles to the Corinthians and that to 
tie Galatians afford a yet stronger guarantee of truth- 
fulness, which places them in a class of historical 
documents than which none can be of higher value. 
In both these churches parties existed who not only 
disagreed with St. Paul on points which were esteemed 
to be of the highest importance, but who actually 

106 


Be 


e 


Pe SPO MN de ee 


=. x 
ee ee ee 


THE NEW TESTAMENT MIRACLES. 


denied the validity of his apostolical commission. No 
inconsiderable portion of these epistles is occupied in 
arguing the point in question. The extent of the 
opposition may be judged from the fact that St. Paul 
went the length of denouncing his opponents as 
corrupters of the Gospel; and they denounced him 
as a false apostle. 

This being so, we have the strongest guarantee 
that both St. Paul and his opponents must have 
mutually accepted the chief facts on which Christianity 
rested. There are several direct and numerous in- 
direct allusions tothem in these epistles. They were 
intended to be read out before the assembled church, 
in the presence of his adversaries. If his fundamental 
facts, including his Christology, had differed in any 
material point from those of his Jewish opponents, he 
would at once have exposed himself to their denun- 
ciation as a false reporter of the facts on which their 
common Christianity rested; and the controversy 
between them must have been terminated by his 
disgraceful discomfiture. 

But further: these epistles are. not only available 
-as evidence for the beliefs of the Church at the dates 
when they were written ; but they carry us up to a 
very brief interval after the date of the crucifixion. 
The first testimony which they afford on this point is 
_ that of the apostle himself, whose active life as a 
Christian missionary dates from his conversion—which 
it is impossible to place later than ten years after this 

107 


POSITIVE EVIDENCE IN PROOF OF 


event, though it was probably earlier. To this must 
be added the two or three years of his life as a perse- 
cutor; during which time he must have possessed the 
most ample means of ascertaining the nature of the 
facts on which the new sect professed to found its 
existence. These two things combined render it 
simply impossible that he could have been the prey 
of any misconception as to the primary facts on 
which Christianity rested. Let it be remembered that 
one of these facts was unquestionably the resurrection 
of Jesus Christ; and that within five or six years at 
most after its alleged occurrence, his means of in- 
vestigating it must have been ample. Next, these 
epistles present us with the belief of the Roman 
Church, two at least of whose members had em- 
braced Christianity before Paul; and that of the 
entire body must beyond doubt have emanated from 
the primitive Jewish Church. Lastly, these epistles 
present us with the testimony of St. Paul’s opponents, 
who were unquestionably Judaising Christians, who 
professed to adhere to the opinions of the Church of 
Jerusalem, the heads of which were Peter, James, and — 
John. This carries along with it that of the whole 
body of primitive believers. These epistles there- 
fore establish it as an unquestionable fact, that 
whatever may have been the doctrinal differences 
between St. Paul and the Judaising Christians, they 
were at agreement with respect to all the great facts 
ion which their common Christianity rested. 
108 


THE NEW TESTAMENT MIRACLES. 


But further: in one of his most controversial pas- 
sages, St. Paul directly asserts that he communicated 
to the chiefs of the primitive apostles the Gospel 
which he preached among the Gentiles, and that he 
received from them the right hand of fellowship. 
This assertion must have involved a direct untruth, 
unless the facts on which the Pauline Gospel rested 
were the same as those that were accepted by the 
Church at Jerusalem as the foundation of its_ 
Christianity. Our historical testimony therefore 
extends to the morning of the alleged resurrection of 
Jesus, and to the chief facts of His ministry, on which 
His claim to be the Christ rested. This testimony 
has not only a positive but a negative value. These — 
epistles make it certain that there was no other set 
of facts which was accepted by any section of the 
early Church as the ground of its existence. 


The points which they prove: 1. The evidence of a 
traditionary account of the actions and teaching of our 
Lord. 


Having thus proved that our documentary evidence 
belongs to the highest form of historical testimony, 
I will now state in the briefest possible form the chief 
facts which it is valid to prove. For its formal 
elaboration I must refer to “ The Saas in the 
New Testament.” 

These epistles contain a small Westies of direct 
references, and a large number of indirect ones, both 

109 


‘POSITIVE EVIDENCE IN PROOF OF 


to the actions and the teaching of Jesus. Both of 
these refer to a portraiture of Him which must have 
been substantially the same as that which is con- 
tained in our present Gospels, and prove beyond all 
question that the Christ on which the Church was 
built must have belonged, in the opinion both of St. 
Paul and the Church, to the regions of the super- 
natural and the divine. But the indirect references 
possess this additional importance, as they furnish 
positive proof that there must have been existing in 
these churches an account of the actions and teach- 
ing of Jesus Christ, either in-an oral form, or in one 
partly oral and partly written—whichever it was is 
immaterial to the present argument—with which its” 
members must have been intimately acquainted, and 
which in its chief outlines must have been substan- 
tially the same as that which we read in our present 
Gospels. If the believers to whom the Apostle wrote 
had not been well acquainted with such a narrative, 
the numerous incidental allusions to the person, work, 
and character of Jesus would have been simply 
unmeaning. The moral teaching also which is 
scattered throughout these epistles in the most inci- 
dental form, bears the closest analogy to that which 
is contained in the Gospels, and therefore proves that 
the Church must have been in possession of a body 
of teaching which was distinctly recognised as the 
teaching of Jesus, which must have been the same 
when the Apostle wrote, as that which was handed 
110 


THE NEW TESTAMENT MIRACLES. 


down as His by His primitive followers; and proves 
that either an oral or a written narrative must have 
been handed down in the Church, the same in all 
its chief outlines as that which was accepted by His 
original followers. 


IT, The existence of an Advanced Christology. 


These epistles prove the belief in a very advanced 
Christology at the time when they were composed. 
They make it clear that the writer considered that the 
Person of Jesus contained in it supernatural elements 
of a very high order, and that this belief was shared 
in by the different sections of the Church. It is quite 
unnecessary for the purpose of this argument to 
attempt to define the nature of this belief in a number 
of formal definitions. It is sufficient for my purpose 
that the character must have been superhuman and 
supernatural. The number both of direct statements 
and. allusions are exceedingly numerous; no less so 
are those of an incidental character; and they are all 
made in such a form as to prove that it never crossed 
the mind of the writer that those to whom he wrote 
did not view the Person of their common Master in 
some sense or other as divine. These epistles there- 
fore afford the clearest proof that the whole of the 
churches to whom they are addressed ascribed a 
supernatural character of some kind to Jesus, and 
that that character was no mere Pauline invention, 
but must have been ascribed to Him by His primitive 

1EI 


POSITIVE EVIDENCE IN PROOF OF 


followers, if not in the precise form in which Paul 
accepted it, yet so as to involve the presence of the 
superhuman. It follows therefore that, in the belief 
of the Church, Jesus, during the course of His ministry, 
must have been a worker of miracles. 

The Person of Jesus must therefore have been 
invested with a supernatural character within a brief 
period after His crucifixion. It is an event without 
example in the history of the world, that a person 
thus executed should within such a brief space have 
received the honours of deification. But it was not 
a deification only, such as that which was rendered 
to a Roman emperor shortly after his decease. 
Between the feelings entertained towards Him and_ 
them there was not. one point in common. He was 
not simply viewed as a supernatural being of some 
kind or order, but as one who was the rightful Lord 
of the human conscience, and the centre of all religious 
and moral obligation. Nor was the idea one of recent 
crowth. The Church of Rome accepted the view no 
less than the churches which St. Paul had planted. 
The Epistles to the Corinthians and Galatians prove 
that St. Paul’s opponents viewed the Person of Jesus 
as worthy of supreme regard. They must not only 
have accepted Him as a moral Teacher and an 
Example, but as the churches’ sovereign Legislator 
and Lord. Unless this was so, a great number of St. 
Paul’s exhortations would have been meaningless. 


But if any doubt could exist on this point, one of 
112 


THE NEW TESTAMENT MIRACLES. 


the writings accepted by our opponents as the only 
genuine one in the New Testament written by one 
of the original apostles, puts this beyond question 
I allude to the Apocalypse. This book ascribes to 
Jesus a very high form of Divinity, not inferior to 
that contained in the fourth Gospel. Yet it was 
composed by one of the original twelve, within forty 
years of the crucifixion; and as our opponents affirm 
the most determined enemy of the apostle Paul, 
whose teaching they allege that he has expressly 
denounced init. Wecannot therefore have a stronger 
evidence than the contents of this book, that the 
original followers of Jesus must have ascribed to Him 
a Divine character of some sort. I do not deny that 
the Christology of John may have become more 
elevated during the interval in question; but it is 
simply unbelievable that a companion of Jesus should 
have metamorphosed Him into the Divine Christ of 
this book, if during the period he had conversed with 
Him He had presented nothing more than the aspect 
of an ordinary Jewish Rabbi; or if he had become 
a prey to such a mental hallucination, that the 
portraiture could have been accepted by the Church 
as true, while its traditions must have been in a state 
of the utmost freshness, and other witnesses of His 
ministry were unquestionably surviving. These con- 
siderations therefore prove that the idea that Jesus 
was possessed of a supernatural character, or in other 
words, that He was a worker of miracles, was not a 
113 I 


ee POSITIVE EVIDENCE IN PROOF OF 


mere gradual development, but that it must have 
been accepted by His followers during His public 
ministry. It follows, therefore, that the mythic, 
legendary, and development theories, whereby the 
ascription to Him of a halo of miracles has been 
attempted to be accounted for, utterly fail to grapple 
with the historical conditions of the case. These 
require ample periods of time during which they can 
be gradually formed. The rigid facts of history have 
no time to concede for their formation. — 


ITI. That our Lord and His Apostles professed to 
perform Miracles. 


These epistles conclusively prove that at the time 
when they were written, St. Paul, and the churches 
to whom he wrote, considered that manifestations of 
supernatural power were frequently taking place 
among them. I fully concede that this does not by 
itself prove that the occurrences in question were 
supernatural. On such a point it is quite possible 
that the entire Church might have been labouring 


under a delusion; but they conclusively prove that 


both the apostle and those to whom he wrote firmly 
believed them to be such. They consist of two 
different classes of facts. First, direct miracles be- 
lieved to have been wrought by Paul. Secondly, the 
presence of a large number of supernatural endow- 
ments, of which the individual members of the Church 
believed themselves to be in actual possession. 
114 


. 
Se ee 


THE NEW TESTAMENT MIRACLES. 


First, with respect to miracles wrought by St. Paul, 
it has been affirmed by several writers, that although 
many persons have alleged that miracles have been 
performed by others, yet it is impossible to find a 
writer of character who deliberately affirms that he 
has done so himself. This assertion has originated in 
an obvious oversight. St. Paul, in each of the epistles 
to the Roman, Corinthian, and Galatian churches, 
has deliberately asserted that he was in the habit of 
performing actions which both he and those to whom 
he wrote considered to be miraculous. Thus he 
writes to the Romans: “I will not dare to speak of 
any of those things which Christ hath not wrought 
by me, to make the Gentiles obedient by word and 
deed, through mighty signs and. wonders, by the 
power of the Spirit of God; so that from Jerusalem, 
_and round about unto Illyricum, I have fully preached 
the Gospel of Christ.” To the Corinthians he says 

™~as follows: “ Truly the signs of an apostle were 
wrought among you, in all patience, in signs, and 
wonders, and mighty deeds.” To the Galatians he 
uses the words, “He that worketh miracles among 
you,” Here the context makes it plain that he means 
himself, 

Nothing, therefore, can be clearer than that St. 
Paul has here asserted that he was in the habit 
of working miracles. These quotations prove the 
following points :— 

1, Within twenty-eight years after the crucifixion 

115 


POSITIVE EVIDENCE IN PROOF OF 


St. Paul believed that he possessed the power of 
working miracles, and that he had done so through 
the entire course of his previous ministry; and the 
churches to whom he wrote concurred with him 
in this opinion. 

2. This power of working miracles was supposed 


to be necessary as a vindication of a person's claim ~ 


to the office of an apostle. Consequently, these 
assertions of St..Paul furnish an incidental proof 
that the other apostles claimed to be endowed with 
this power, and were believed by their converts to 
possess it. 

3. Although St. Paul’s opponents at Corinth denied 
that he was a true apostle, yet they did not venture 
to affirm that he had not performed actions which were 
apparently miraculous. This is clear from the fact 
that, unless they had esteemed them to be genuine 
miracles, the apostle in making these assertions would 
have laid himself open to the danger of immediate 
exposure. 

4. As St. Paul believed that he had exercised these 
powers from the first commencement of his ministry, 
and that the other apostles had done so likewise, this 
carries up the belief in this supernatural power to the 
first origin of the Christian Church. 

5. As it is inconceivable that the servant could 
have believed that he possessed a power of which 
his Master was destitute, it follows that both St. Pant 


and the churches must have believed that Jesus was 


116 


THE NEW TESTAMENT MIRACLES. 


an habitual worker of miracles; and that He Himself 
must have believed that He performed them. 

6. The belief in the possession of this miraculous 
power was no gradual growth in the Church, in the 
form of myths or legends, but was coincident with 
the first propagation of Christianity. 

I fully concede that neither of these six points, nor 
the whole of them together, afford an actual demon- 
stration that these supposed miracles were real ones ; 
but I submit that they go a long way to establish 
their reality as firmly as any facts in history. As 
unbelievers do not deny that the moral utterances 
contained in the Gospels are in the main accurate 
reports of the teaching of Jesus, they clearly establish 
the lofty elevation of His character; and as these 
epistles render us certain as to that of Paul, it is 
simply incredible that either of them should have lent 
himself to the perpetration of a fraud ; and it is little 
less so, that they should have been a prey to a state 
of mental hallucination which would have left them 
under a delusion as to whether the acts which they 
so frequently performed were or were not miraculous. 
But, further, if the supposed miracles involved in- 
stantaneous cures of blind, lame, paralytic, maimed, 
or leprous persons, such as the Gospels represent 
them to have been, delusion as to their reality was 
out of the question. I fully admit that St. Paul has 
nowhere in the Epistles stated the kind of miracle 
which he believed that he was in the habit of perform- 

117 


POSITIVE EVIDENCE IN PROOF OF 


ing, nor of those which he and the Church attributed 
to Jesus. This can only be learned from the Gospels, 
and the Acts of the Apostles; but history will 
refuse to believe that the traditions of the Church 
have utterly failed to present us with at least a 
general idea of the kind of miracles which Jesus and 
His apostles professed to perform, even if we accept 
the dates which are assigned by unbelievers for the 
composition of the Gospels as the correct ones. It 
follows, therefore, that if neither Jesus nor St. Paul 
could have been deceived on this point, the miracles 
which they asserted that they performed must have 
been real ones. 


LV. The existence of a number of Supernatural 
Manifestations in the Apostolic Church. 


I now draw special attention to the supernatural 
endowments of which the different members of these 
churches believed that they were actually in possession, 
because their phenomena are so singular as to render 
it in the highest degree improbable that either Paul 
or the churches could have been labouring under a 
delusion respecting them. | 

These epistles afford the most conclusive proof that 
St. Paul and the various parties in these churches 
were firmly persuaded that a set of supernatural 
manifestations of a different order were taking place 
as the result of the operation of the Divine Spirit, 
wrought in testimony to the Resurrection of Jesus, 

118 


THE NEW TESTAMENT. MIRACLES. 


and for the ‘purpose of firmly planting the Church 
among the communities of the world. From the 
manner in which these are referred to, it is impossible 
to come to any other conclusion than that they point 
to facts of some kind as habitually occurring among 
the members of these churches ; though this does not 
of itself prove that they were due to supernatural 
agency. As this subject is of great importance in this 
controversy, I have elsewhere treated it at considerable 
lencth. At present I must content myself with the 
briefest allusion to its most salient points. 

Besides a number of incidental references to these 
supernatural endowments scattered throughout the 
whole of his writings, St. Paul has devoted to them, 
in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, three entire 
chapters, full of the most interesting and minute details. 
In the twelfth chapter he gives a list of them, which is 
repeated three times,—and which, if not intended to 
be exhaustive, was evidently intended to enumerate 
the chief ones. They areas follows: the gift of wisdom, 
of knowledge, of faith; gifts of healing, of working 
~ of miracles (evepynuata duvauéwv), prophecy, discerning 
of spirits, tongues, and of interpretation. The Epistle 
makes the following facts respecting them certain :— 

1. They were believed to be supernatural endow- 
ments communicated by the Divine Spirit to various 
members of these churches. | 

2. They were in the most constant and habitual 
exercise. 


119 


POSITIVE EVIDENCE IN PROOF OF 


3. Two of them only would in modern times be 
designated as a power of working miracles. The 
remainder superadded a number of mental endow- 
ments to the possessors., . 

4. So profound was the conviction of the different 
members of the Church that these gifts were a reality, 
that a deep spirit. of emulation prevailed to possess 
the more important ones, 

5. These gifts were supernatural endowments, 
qualifying their possessors for the discharge of par- 
ticular functions in the Church, suited to the ee of 
the infant community. 

6. They possessed this remarkable characteristic, 
that they were entirely distinct from each other in 
function; and that the possession of one of them. 
by no means implied that of another; nor did the 
enlightenment conveyed by one convey any addi- 
tional information on the subject-matter of another. 

7. Just as it is with our natural faculties, the 
possession of a gift did not confer on the possessor 
the discretion to use it rightly. It was even capable 
_ of being abused for the purposes of ostentation. 

8. Whatever these supernatural powers might have 
been, in certain cases they were capable of being called 
into exercise subject to the control of the will of 
the possessor; and the apostle lays down a number 
of regulations for the purpose of repressing their 
disorderly use, and rendering their exercise conducive 
to edification. 


THE NEW TESTAMENT MIRACLES. 


9. While deeply persuaded of the reality of these — 
gifts, the apostle was fully sensible that they would 
not be permanently continued in the Church; but 
that they were to fulfil a merely temporary purpose. 
When that purpose was realized, they were to be. 
withdrawn. He even assigns them a very subordinate 
rank to a number of moral virtues. 

10. These gifts, if real, constituted a body of 
endowments of which the early Church must have 
stood in urgent need ; and without the aid of which, 
humanly speaking, it was impossible that it could 
have succeeded in establishing itself as a permanent 
institution. Two of them would have enabled its 
despised missionaries to command the attention of 
indifferent or hostile audiences. Another conferred 
on them the requisite courage for pleading the cause 
of the New Religion in the midst of dangers. Three 
more furnished the requisite enlightenment as to its 
principles, and supplied the defects of the early training 
of the converts. Another furnished its possessor with 
a supernatural insight into character,—a qualification 
which must have been pre-eminently needful for those 
who were called on to exercise government or over- 
sight in the Church... Fhe function of. the gift: of 
tongues is doubtful; but it seems to have been a 
power of raising the mind above its ordinary level, 
and giving utterance to its exalted feelings. That of 
interpretation was the expression of these utterances 
in the forms of ordinary thought. 

121 


POSITIVE, EVIDENCE IN PROOF OF 


Such are the chief facts which this epistle proves 
to have been accepted as actualities by St. Paul, and 
even by the parties in these churches in opposition to 
him. So far we are on firm ground. They prove 
both that the apostle, and those'to whom he wrote, 
firmly believed in the presence of a very remarkable 
supernatural power in these churches, and one entirely 
different in character from the creations of current 
supernaturalism. As it has been objected that the 
whole was due to a spirit of fanatical enthusiasm, I 
draw your attention to the fact that the characteris- 
tics above referred to are such as are to be found in 
no system of miraculous belief which has been gene- 
rated by enthusiasm. In the apostle’s whole treat- 
ment of the subject we discern the presence of a highly 
discriminating judgment. These phenomena, the pecu- 
liarities of which are very imperfectly appreciated by 
ordinary readers, are such as fanaticism does not 
create. I allude especially to their separation of 
function, to their being subject to the control of the 
will of the possessor, to their liability to abuse, to 
their conferring no general infallibility, and to their 
being designed to subserve only a temporary purpose. 
I submit it, therefore, to your careful consideration, 
that the peculiarity of the phenomena in question, the 
existence of which these epistles positively establish, 
and the discriminating judgment which St. Paul exer- 
cised respecting them, go a long way to prove that 
they were facts, and not delusions of the imagination. 

122 


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‘ ee on ee 


THE NEW TESTAMENT MIRACLES. 


V. The existence of a new Spiritual and Moral 
Power in the Church. 

To the belief in the presence of one more super- 
natural element in the Church, these epistles afford 
the most undeniable proof. The embracing of 
Christianity had been attended with a mighty moral 
renovation in the minds of the converts. This the 
apostle and his converts firmly believed to be due to 
the operation of supernatural causes. It is a certain 
fact that it was occasioned by the preaching of super- 
natural beliefs. The reality and the greatness of the 
effect that was produced is indisputable.. Every part 
of the Epistles is full of allusions to it. ‘“ Ye have 
turned to God from idols,” says the apostle, “ to serve 
the living and true God.” Addressing those who had 
been abandoned to a number of odious vices, he says, 
“ But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are 
_ justified in the name of our Lord Jesus, and by the 
Spirit of our:God.” It is simply incontrovertible that 
these Christian converts from paganism had under- 
gene a mighty moral transformation. I submit that 
- the facts are utterly unable to be accounted for by the 
mere action of enthusiasm, fanaticism, or credulity. 


VI. That within the briefest interval after the Cruct- 
fixion, the Resurrection of Fesus was accepted as a fact 
by the entire Church and by its individual Members. 


These epistles furnish the most overwhelming 
proof that (when the apostle wrote them) the entire 
123 


POSITIVE EVIDENCE IN PROOF OF 


Church, including its most Judaising sections, firmly 
believed in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, as 
the great fact on which its entire superstructure was 
erected ; and that this belief-was firmly entertained 
by those followers of Jesus who reconstructed the 
Church after the crucifixion; and that it was the only 
thing which rendered it possible. As it is impos- 


sible, within the space which can be devoted to a 


lecture, that I should cite the passages in these epistles 
which bear on this subject, I must content myself 
with a statement of the results which they prove, and 
a brief discussion of their evidential value. 

Va I, They prove, beyond the power of contradiction, 
that St. Paul firmly believed that he had seen Jesus 
Christ risen from the dead. This, of course, by no means 
proves that what he saw was an objective reality ; but 
whether it was so, or a delusion of the imagination, it 
is one of the most palpable facts of history that the 
conviction that he had done so metamorphosed his 
entire life, has effected the mightiest and most benefi- 
cent revolution in the history of Europe, and has 
exerted an influence on all the great civilized races of 
men, compared with which the deeds of its greatest 
statesmen and warriors, the creations of its greatest 
poets, and the works of its greatest writers are as 
nothing. Are the mighty results which are due to 
St. Paul’s conversion owing to the hallucinations of 
an overheated brain? Are they based on an un- 
reality? If they-are so, the condition of human 

124 


a ali a a a Na es Sa bel oly) Va 


THE NEW TESTAMENT MIRACLES. 


nature is deplorable indeed; for in that case fanati- 
cism, enthusiasm, and delusion were powerful to effect 
what the utmost efforts of enlightened reason have | 
failed to accomplish. Asa result such as this great 
delusion has accomplished (if it be one), is without a 
parallel in the history of man, and is utterly un- 
accountable by means of the known forces which act 
on human nature, it leaves us in the presence of a 
moral miracle. 

It has often been objected against the validity of 
the apostle’s testimony, that being a man of peculiar 
mental idiosyncrasies, he mistook a subjective im- 
pression for an objective fact. If I were at liberty 
to assume the truth of the narrative in the Acts of 
the Apostles, circumstances are there mentioned by 
the writer—such as the falling of scales from his eyes 
—which would render the truth of such a supposition 
impossible. But as these facts are not mentioned by 
the apostle, and as the truthfulness of the author of 
the Acts is denied, I cannot avail myself of them. 
We have, therefore, only St. Paui’s full belief that 
what he saw was an objective fact, and that this was 
so powerful as to convert him from furious opposition 
into devoted love to Jesus, and to efforts to spread 
His Gospel, which a life of suffering was unable to 
shake, and which terminated only with his life. Let 
me here specially draw attention to the fact that the 
supposition that St. Paul was a prey to a delusion of 
the imagination, leaves the might with which it has 

125 


POSITIVE EVIDENCE IN PROOF OF 


acted on the history of the world, and the beneficent 
results that have followed it, utterly unaccounted for. 


Why is it, I ask, that of all the delusions of which | 


man has been the prey, this only has been attended 
with such mighty and beneficent results? It is not 
sufficient to say that St. Paul was the prey of a 
mental hallucination; but it is necessary to account 
for the effects which it has produced, otherwise we 
fail to grapple with the historical conditions of the 
case. 

These epistles prove that in all ordinary matters, 
in things relating to his mission, and even in dealing 
with events which he himself esteemed to be super- 
natural, the apostle was a man of the soundest 
practical judgment. In estimating the value of his 
testimony, this latter point requires particularly to 
be attended to; and I confidently appeal to his mode 
of dealing with the supernatural gifts as a proof of it. 
He undoubtedly considered himself to be the subject 
of supernatural revelations; but several passages make 
it clear that he was in the habit of discriminating 
between these and the impressions of his own con- 
sciousness. 

2. The’belief in the resurrection of Jesus does not 
simply rest on St. Paul's testimony that -he actually 
saw Him. It was the universal belief of the Church, 
—even of his opponents, who evidently had not de- 
rived their views of Christianity from his teaching. 


3. It was not only believed in as a fact, but it was 
126 


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THE NEW TESTAMENT MIRACLES. 


the one sole and only ground of the existence of the 
Church as a community. 

4. It was recognised as possessing a mighty moral 
and spiritual power, binding the individual Christian 
into the closest relation to Jesus, as his sovereign 
Lord, to whom he felt bound both to live and to die. 

5. The testimony of these epistles not only is 
valid for the dates when they were written—viz., the 
brief interval of twenty-four, twenty-eight, and thirty- 
two years after the crucifixion respectively—but is 
equally so for that of every one of the primitive 
apostolic churches, including the mother-church of 
Jerusalem. This being so, they prove that it was 
coincident with the reconstruction of the Church 
immediately after the crucifixion, and was the sole 
foundation on which it rested. 

6. If this belief was founded on a delusion, it must 
have been one which was embraced by a very large : 
number of persons within the briefest interval of 
time, and have béen one with which neither myth nor 
legend had anything to do in the formation. 

7. These epistles furnish us with the names of 
several of the original followers of Jesus who believed 
that they had seen their risen Master on several 
different occasions—viz., Peter, the eleven apostles, 
James—then the entire apostolic body. This is 
not only affirmed. by St. Paul in the face of his 
opponents as a truth which was incapable of being 
disputed ; but the language of St. John in the 

127 


POSITIVE EVIDENCE IN PROOF OF 


Apocalypse affords the most unquestionable confir- 
mation of the fact. Also, when we compare together 
St. Paul’s assertion in the Corinthians, that He 
was seen’ by James and Peter, with that in the 
Galatians, that he had a personal interview with 
those apostles, in which he discussed with them the 
essential principles of their common faith, the pro- 
bability amounts to almost a certainty that he was 
told by Peter and James that they had seen the 
Lord. 

8. The Epistle to the Corinthians also informs 
us that one appearance of the risen Jesus was be- 
lieved to have been witnessed by upwards of five 
hundred of His followers, of whom more than one- 
half were alive when the apostle wrote the letter. 
This is a fact of which, if true, it is hardly pos- 
sible to exaggerate the importance. In confirma- 
tion of its truth, I observe that it is impossible to 
believe that St. Paul asserted it, knowing it not 
to be a fact. Even if unbelievefS go to the ex- 


travagant length of questioning the honesty of such 


a man, it is impossible to doubt his prudence. 
This alone would have withheld him from making 
such an assertion in the face of his enemies, unless 
he fully believed that they accepted this statement as 
a fact. His means of ascertaining the truth were 
ample ; and it is impossible to believe that a-man of 
the mental endowments of St. Paul would have 


omitted to inquire into the beliefs of the primitive 
1:8 ¥ 


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THE NEW TESTAMENT. MIRACLES. 


believers ona point so vital as the resurrection of 
eS less. ; 

g. One further point these epistles put in a striking 
light. The resurrection of Jesus was accepted as a 
fact even by those who on general grounds explained | 
away the truth of the literal teaching of Christianity 
as to its promise of a corporeal resurrection here- 
after. Views of this kind were entertained by some 
‘portion of the Corinthian church. St. Paul’s mode 
of reasoning with them is most remarkable. Its 
entire cogency depends on the assumption that they 
would admit the resurrection of Jesus to have been 
an objective fact. If they had entertained the 
smallest doubt on this, his argument would have 
been simply absurd. “If Christ be preached to 
you that He rose from the dead, how say some 
among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?” 
The dullest intellect could not have failed to see that 
this argument was conclusively met by denying the 
resurrection of Christ. We may wonder that persons 
who believed in the resurrection of Jesus as a fact 
could have had any difficulties about a future resur- 
rection. Yet so it was; and the mode in which the 
_ apostle reasons with them is an indisputable proof 
both of the universality and the strength of the» 
conviction of the reality of His resurrection. 

Such are the chief facts which the evidence sup- 
plied by these epistles puts beyond all reasonable 
doubt. 


129 K 


POSITIVE EVIDENCE IN. PROOF OF 


The Belief in the Resurrection of our Lord not due 
to the Delusions of His early Followers. 

The question before us is now reduced into 
exceedingly narrow limits. Jesus claimed to be the 
Messiah, a personage whom the writings of the Old 
Testament had induced the Jews generally to expect. 
He was crucified on account of that claim. His cruci- 

‘ fixion caused a temporary extinction of the hopes of 
His followers. His Messianic claims were revived on 
the persuasion of His followers that He had risen 
from the dead. The Church was reconstituted on 
this basis, and has ever since exerted the mightiest 
influence on the foremost portions of the family of 
man. | 

These things being so, there are only two possible 
alternatives before us. Either the resurrection of Jesus 
was a fact; or it was founded on a delusion of some 
kind: for I assume that no one whose opinion on the 
point is of the smallest value will venture to affirm 
that it originated in a deliberate imposture. If the 
latter of these two alternatives be adopted, the delusion — 
must have taken one out of two forms, which are the 
only possible ones. Either the followers of Jesus 
thought that they saw Him when in fact what they 
saw was nothing but the creation of their imagina- 
tions; or Jesus did not really die, but they mistook 
a recovery from the wounds which He received in 
crucifixion for a resurrection. Other alternatives 
there are none. | 

130 


THE NEW TESTAMENT MIRACLES. 


The last of these hypotheses seems to me to be so 


hopelessly absurd, that it is hardly possible to argue — 


against it with gravity. No depths of credulity 
on the part of the followers of Jesus are sufficient 
to render such an hypothesis a_ possible one. 
What the Church stood in urgent need of was not 
a man slowly recovering from his wounds, but a 
Messiah capable of realizing her aspirations. It was 
impossible to mistake a sick Jesus hiding Himself in 
obscurity for that Messiah. Ifthe idea of the resur- 
rection originated in this way, it must have been the 
conscious imposture on the part of Jesus, His fol- 
lowers, or both. But this will not be pretended ; for 
it is impossible that the religion of truth can have 
originated in a conscious fraud. To suppose, as the 
true solution of the historical problem before us, that 
a Jesus slowly recovering from His wounds, who was 
secretly conveyed away, and who henceforth hid 
Himself in retirement, and died shortly afterwards, 
was actually a Christ raised from the dead, who could 
‘realize the hopes of His followers, will be accepted 
only by those who secretly believe that human nature 
is a sham: Jesus was either visited by His disciples, 
or He was not. If they visited Him, they had the 
evidence of their senses that what was before them 
was a weak and dying man. If they agreed together 
to reconstruct the Church on the basis of His supposed 
“resurrection, it must have been a fraud deliberately 
concocted. If He was secretly removed into some 
131 


POSITIVE EVIDENCE IN PROOF OF 


distant place of security, and this retirement of His 
was the foundation of the delusion that He had risen 
from the dead and ascended into heaven, this must 
have been well known to those through whose agency 
it must have been effected. Did Jesus lend Himself 
to this scheme? How long did it take to persuade 
His other followers that He had gone up into heaven, 
without affording them a sight of Him, and on this 
to found the idea of His spiritual Messiahship? In 
considering this subject, it must never be forgotten 
that while such a belief was very slowly growing, the 
Church was perishing from the want of a Messiah at. 
its head to unite together its discordant elements. 
Besides, the idea that Jesus had escaped with His 
life-is one which never struck the early Jewish ad- 
versaries of the Christian Church. It has originated 
only in the closet of modern speculators. 


Lhe Vision Theory considered. 


The other hypothesis may be designated as the 
“vision theory.” It is founded on the assumption 
that one or more of the followers of Jesus mistook 
some subjective impression that they had seen Him 
alive after His crucifixion for an objective reality ; 
and under this delusion they persuaded the others to 
believe in its reality. This hypothesis, in order that 
it may bear the ‘appearance of possibility, is under | 
the necessity of assuming that the followers of Jesus 


were the prey of an amount of enthusiasm and 
132 


THE NEW TESTAMENT MIRACLES. 


credulity that knows no limits. As it will be impos- 
sible for me to discuss all the various forms under 
which this hypothesis may be presented, within the 
space allotted to this lecture, I must content myself 
with offering a few observations on its general — 
character. : 

While this hypothesis frees the followers of Jesus 
from the charge of deliberate imposture, it represents 
that that which has been the most benevolent of 
human institutions, and has produced the greatest © 
amount of self-sacrifice, has originated in a baseless 
delusion. Those who retain any faith in humanity 
will only accept this as a solution of the facts before 
us, except under pure inability to do otherwise. 
The Person and work of Jesus—not a bare doctrine— 
has imparted to this society its moral and spiritual 
power. That power has been centred, not in a mere — 
fond admiration for departed worth, which has passed 
into everlasting unconsciousness, but in a Jesus still 
alive, who possesses every perfection of human nature, 
able to be the subject of the profoundest regards of His 
followers, and prompt them to. make a self-sacrifice for 
Him similar to that which He has shown for them. Can 
it bea fact that the self-sacrificing regards of those who 
during the course of eighteen centuries, in numbers 
which no man can number, (Blessed be God for the 
fact!) have viewed Him as the centre of their moral 
and spiritual life, and who have striven to surrender 
themselves to Him as living sacrifices—a reasonable 

133 


=- 


POSTTIVE EVIDENCE IN PROOF OF 


service—Can it be true, I ask, that all this has been | 


rendered to one who sleepeth, and cannot be awa- 
kened? No other religion, or moral system, or great 
institution, is based on devotion to a living person. 

Those who propound this theory as a solution of 
the origin of the delusion of the belief in the resur- 
rection of Jesus, would gladly assume that it origi- 
nated in the enthusiasm of a single individual, and 
that he or she communicated his or her enthusiasm 
to the other disciples. The reason of this is obvious. 
It is a far more plausible assumption that a single 
person should have fancied that he saw Jesus alive 
after His crucifixion, and persuaded others that he 
had done so, than that many persons should have at 
the same time been the prey of similar delusions. 
But the assumption that He was seen by one person 
only is in the most direct and palpable contradiction 
to facts which I have proved to rest on the most 
unquestionable historical evidence. Not one person, 
but many, were firmly convinced that they had seen 
Him alive after His crucifixion. This is the true 
problem which history presents to us for solution ; 
and we must not allow our attention to be diverted 
from it by any mere theory destitute of an historical 
foundation. , 

Still, however, it will not be out of place to offer 
‘one or two remarks on it. Let it be observed that 
this is not the mere case of a person’s mistaking a 
subjective impression for an external reality, such 

134 


ae soi 


THE NEW TESTAMENT. MIRACLES, 


2 


as occur under certain states of disturbance of our 
mental powers, which are designated “spectral illu- 
sions.” It involves the persuasion that a man who 
had been crucified only a few days before—not his 
ghost, or a spectre—thus reappeared, and was mis- 
taken for the friend actually returned to life. Nay, ~ 
more: conversations devoid of all objective reality 
must have been held; appointments have been made 
for future meetings; messages must have been sent ; 
resolutions formed; and many other things, which it is 
impossible here to enumerate, must have passed be- 
tween them. These engagements were kept, or they 
were not. If they were not, then there would have 
been an end of the delusion. If they were, it is neces- 
sary to assume a succession of such visionary delusions. 
But is it credible, I ask, that an enthusiastic follower 
of Jesus, who was persuaded that he saw Him again 
alive in bodily reality, should have made no attempt 
to embrace or touch Him during these repeated 
meetings? If he had done so, the delusion must 
have burst at once. | 

But further: it must have taken a long time before 
the other followers could have been induced to accept 
this story .as.a fact, and to set-themselves to -ren 
constitute the Church on its basis, They could not 
help asking, Was He not going to appear to them? 
What about His Messianic claims? Was He going 
to revive them on the old foundation? How was the 
Church to be reconstructed on the basis of a Messiah 
135 


POSITIVE EVIDENCE IN PROOF OF 


who had been crucified, but who had been raised from _ 


the dead? Would He appear at their head? These 
and numerous other questions must have been asked; 
and until they were answered, the acceptance of the 
story was impossible. Under such circumstances, the 
process of making converts—if possible—must have 
been a very slow and painful one. A considerable 
interval of time must have been absolutely neces- 
sary to have effected it ; for such delusions are only 
possible when the realities of the present have become 
dimmed by the haziness of the distant past. The 
required interval of time is precisely the thing which 
the stern conditions of history refuse to grant. 


But to return to the theory which historical evi-. 


dence proves to be the only possible one, as an 


adequate solution of the facts. Not one person, but 


many,—St. Paul says, more than five hundred at 
once,—several of whom can be named, were firmly 
persuaded that they had seen Jesus alive after His 


crucifixion, on different occasions. It follows, there-— 
fore, that if they mistook creations of their imagina-_ 


tions for objective facts, considerable numbers of 
persons must have laboured under the hallucination 
of fancying that they saw visions of the crucified 
Jesus risen from the dead, and have mistaken them 
_ for realities. This, and no other, is the true problem 
which the highest form of historical evidence presents 
for our solution, as the only alternative to the resur- 
rection of Jesus being an objective fact. 
136 


THE NEW TESTAMENT MIRACLES, * 


I need not point out in detail—for the subject is 
one level to the most. ordinary understanding—the 
numerous and insuperable objections to which such a 
theory is exposed. What! Several different persons, 
and on different occasions, five hundred on one occa- 
sion, and eleven on several others, imagining that they 
Saw visions of Jesus alive after His crucifixion, and 
fancying that what they saw was not His Spirit, but 
Himself raised from the dead? that they saw these 
visions both when collected in bodies, and separately 
as individuals? that they communed with Him, re- 
ceived from Him definite and satisfactory answers, 
made appointments to meet Him, and finally, that 
they proceeded to reconstruct the Church on the basis 
of a spiritual Messiah, who was to teionvin Heaven, 
instead of a temporal one, who was to reign on earth? 
Nay, not only was this mass of delusion possible, but 
it has acted on the mind of man with a power and 
influence for good, such as no truth has succeeded in 
effecting! I. appeal from the bar of prejudice and 
prepossessions, to that of reason and of fact. If this 
theory is a true account of the historic facts, these con- 
stitute a greater miracle than the resurrection itself! 

But I earnestly draw your attention to the following 
consideration. Even if this theory is capable of giving 
a possible account of the historic facts, for which it is 
hopelessly inadequate, it leaves the moral and spiritual 
fact utterly unaccounted for : namely, why it is that of 
all the delusions of which man has been the prey, this 

137 


POSITIVE EVIDENCE IN PROOF OF 


alone has acted with a power and influence for good 
to which history presents nothing in the smallest 
degree parallel? I submit that any theory which 
creates this problem is no solution of the facts as 
- they are presented to us by history. 


Conclusion: 


It follows, therefore, that as both these alternatives 
utterly fail as solutions of the historical facts, besides 
being in themselves hopelessly improbable, the only 
remaining alternative, which is attested by the highest 
form of historical testimony, must be the true one,— 
that Jesus rose from the dead. This also furnishes 
an adequate and philosophical account of all the facts 
of the case. The belief in the resurrection has altered 
the course of the world’s history. It has created the 
mightiest of human societies. It has imparted to it a 
moral and spiritual life, which has been energetic for 

eighteen centuries in improving the condition of man, 

morally, réligiously, socially, and individually. If the 
Messiahship of Jesus was real, and His resurrection a 
fact, it isclear that it involves the presence of a Power 
adequate for the production of the results. But if 
both these are fictions, we are in the presence of a 
result which is destitute of a natural cause, or in other 
words, of a moral miracle. | 

The reality of the resurrection being established, 
the difficulty of accepting the Gospels as credible 
‘narratives of facts ceases. That difficulty never would 

138 


THE NEW TESTAMENT MIRACLES. 


— 


have arisen, except from the narratives of supernatural 
events that they record. Apart from this, all the other 
critical objections taken together would not hinder 
their acceptance as memoirs of the ministry of Jesus 
| Christ, derived from the reminiscences of His personal 
followers, handed down by the continuous traditions 
of different churches, and committed to writing within 
that period when those traditions must have preserved 
the utmost freshness. This is what they profess to 
be; and the truth of the resurrection being established, 
and thereby all @ priori difficulties being removed, we 
can accept their statements on the same amount of 
evidence as we require for the ordinary facts of history 
and of daily life. The miracles themselves become 
the ordinary facts of such a life. Ina similar manner 
~ also the supernatural occurrences which St. Paul 
refers to in his epistles become equally credible. 

The question before me has been a large one, and 
one which requires a far more elaborate treatment 
than has been possible within the limits of a single 
lecture. Those who are desirous of seeing the whole 
argument more fully developed, I must refer to my 
recent work, I submit, however, to your considera- 
tion, that these reasonings are fully adequate to prove 
to any unbiassed mind, on the strongest grounds of 
_ historical evidence, that the supernatural and miracu- 
lous elements which are contained in the New Testa- 
ment are facts, and not the creations of a disordered 
imagination, nor founded on imposture. 

. £99 


POSITIVE EVILENCE IN PROOF OF 


One further observation, and I have finished. Too 


much stress has certainly been laid by the defenders. 


of Christianity on the performance of objective mira- 
cles, as though they formed the one sole proof of a 
supernatural revelation. I am far from underestimating 
them, as the foregoing lecture shows, as proofs of our 


Lord’s divine mission. But I am most anxious that — 


we should place them in their proper position as con- 


stituting only a portion of this proof. If the fourth. 


Gospel is an authentic document of Christianity, our 
_Lord affirmed that He had a higher evidence than that 
of objective miracles in His entire work and Divine 
Person, *“He.that:seeth ‘me, says He,.“seeth Him 
that sent me. “If ye-believe not-me,-beleve the 
works, that ye may see and believe that the Father is 
in me, and I in him.” Our Lord’s entire moral and 
spiritual manifestation, according to these and nu- 
merous other statements in the Gospels, form the 
highest evidence that He came from God. His entire 
Person, work, and spiritual influence form the great 
standing miracle of Christianity, the evidential value 
of which the lapse of time is powerless to diminish. 
To this the history of the world presents no parallel. 
It can be assigned to no human cause. The Light of 
the World shines by its own inherent illuminating 
power. When men’s spiritual blindness is such that 
they fail to perceive it, then, and then only, should 
we appeal to mere objective miracles. We must be 
careful even how we appeal to these apart from their 
140 


THE NEW TESTAMENT MIRACLES. 


moral environment. This the miracles ‘of Christ 
possess. They are not simply prodigies, but “His 
works,”—“the works which His Father gave Him to 
finish.” I apprehend therefore, that, in conformity 
with the statements of the fourth Gospel, the order in 
which our evidence ought to be placed is, first, Christ’s 
Person and divine work ; after that, His miracles. This 
view of the case, though not in express terms asserted 
in the Synoptic Gospels, may be abundantly confirmed 
by their contents. The evidence of miracles was far 
more commanding to those who witnessed them, than it 
can be to us in these latter ages, who have to believe in 
them on historical evidence. But we, after a lapse of 
eighteen centuries, are far more capable of appreciating 
the mightiness of the work of Jesus Christ than His 
contemporaries, or even than the early ages of Chris- 
tianity. This evidence will grow stronger and stronger 
as time advances, until the Father puts all things in 
subjection under His feet. First, then, I place Christ, 
His Person, work, and mighty influence, originating in 
His resurrection from the dead; then His miracles, 
with their moral environment, as proofs that He has 
come from God. 


I4I 


7. RAS 


‘i 


Fe Ge 
ares 


Vite APTATION. OF) CARISTIANTTY TO Lis 
REQUIREMENTS OF HUMAN SOCIETY. 


BY 


ALFRED BARRY, D.D., D.C.L., 


Principal of King’s College, London, Canon of Worcester, and Honorary Chaplat 
to the Queen. 


bat ig 


ou 


THE ADAPTATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO 
THE REQUIREMENTS OF HUMAN SOCIETY. 


I PROPOSE to confine myself rigidly to that aspect of 
the moral power of Christianity, which is described 
in the announced title of this lecture. -The power of 
the Gospel to develope the individual capacities of 
man will be dwelt upon in the next Lecture; its 
power to answer some of the deeper questions of 
human life is to be dealt with in the last one (p22 1); 
I have to speak simply of its bearing on human 
Society as Society,—both on the bonds which keep it 
together, and on the principles which give it a living 
unity, manifesting itself in corporate feeling and 
action. The subject, even thus limited, is formidably 
large; and it is one, moreover, which has occupied 
men’s thoughts forages. I can hope only to sketch it 
in mere outline; nor can I promise any great novelty of 
treatment, except so far as new lights may be thrown 
on an old subject by the needs, the questions, and the 
experiences of our own days. The one point which I 
_would desire to establish, is the almost immeasur- 
able difference between a religious conception of the 
TAS y Le 


THE ADAPTATION OF CHRISTIANITY. 


unity of man, based on the consciousness of a God 
revealed and known to us, and those conceptions 
which either ignore or deny Him. These last can 
but form themselves, even at the best, into an uncen- 


b 


tered and shadowy “ Divine Republic” ; the religious 
conception builds up before us “a city which has 
foundations,’ a well-centered and well-compacted 


“kingdom cf God.” 


This relation of Christianity to human society ° 


should be examined by reference, first to the abstract 
principles of Christianity itself, and next to the 
practical application of these principles in Christian 
teaching and life. 


I. To one who enters on the ground of abstract 


“enquiry, two questions at once present themselves. 
What is it which human society needs for its exist- 
ence and well-being? What is there to correspond to 
these needs in the fundamental truths of the Gospel ? 

The essential needs of human society follow from 
the very nature of its composition. Society is made 
up of a number of men, each of whom has his own 
perfect individuality ; able to stand—in some points 
bound to stand—absolutely alone, face to face with 
himself and with God; yet these individual units 
are necessarily bound together by a network of real 
spiritual ties, so that they not only must inevitably in- 


fluence one another through outward word and action, | 
but are, in their own internal nature, swayed by com-— 


mon influences, which vary in power according to the 
146 ; 


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RS ae “poqe 3% or mane Sas ae ttte ite Ne a, Koo ee Le os ; foe Take ot Die 
er ee ee RS ee LS OL LL nn Nn da ee el eter a ee. ee ke ee ee ne ee eee 


ase er sh A Oe ee eae ee : 
Opie iS pa aa a ee Sete ea 8 a arta ne 


* Sales sta ide ad ace 


tu eS ae Rea 


TO THE REQUIREMENTS OF HUMAN SOCIETY. 


degree of unity of nature existing among them. On 
the right balance of these two principles of Individu- 
alism and Socialism, the well-being of society depends. 
This balance is most difficult to secure in fact, and even 
adequately to determine in theory. One or other 
of its scales is always being depressed below the true 
theoretical equilibrium. . At times the sword of — 
physical force, wielded in the cause of anarchy or 
of tyranny, is thrown in to end the conflict. But this 
violent interposition, if ever salutary, is salutary only 
as a daring act of spiritual surgery, performed on the 
body politic at some crisis of disease. For the normal 
healthy well-being of society, the two principles must 
be recognised, and must partly be harmonised by 
formal regulation, and partly left to harmonise them- 
selves by their own free action. 

Now for individuality Society needs freedom,— 
freedom of individual action within assigned limits, 
and freedom of corporate change and development. 
For unity Society needs stability—-some permanence 
of basis and of main principles, anterior to, and inde- | 
pendent of, the wills of the individuals composing it. 
Without the first there is no social life; without the 
second, social life has no continuity. The perfection of 
human society we call “civilisation” ; the very deriva- 
tion of the word shows the necessity that all should act 
as cives—free citizens of one country, each asserting 
his freedom, and yet asserting it in order to lay it as an 
offering, if need be as a sacrifice, on the altar of unity. 
147 


THE ADAPTATION OF CHRISTIANITY 


Now what has the Gospel to declare in connection © 
with these two fundamental needs ?—or, in other words, 
what does it reveal as the true principles of all social 
life ? | 

Christianity is, no doubt, first a revelation of the 
purest and most perfect Monotheism. In this respect 
it has simply taken up and perfected the sublime 
message of the older covenant: “The Lord our God 
is one Lord; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
with all thy heart, and all thy soul, and all thy mind.” 
Its peculiarity is that, in doing so, it speaks of the will 
of God, not only as an external law, but as a spiritual 
principle, realising itself within the soul. “Our life 
is hid in God.” “In Him we live, and move, and 
have our being.” The will of God, as law, is expressed 
on the tables of stone, written by the finger of God in 
the silence of the Mount. The attributes of God, as 
the basis of all spiritual morality, are represented as 
“written on the fleshy tables of the heart.” To be 
like God is the ideal of humanity. Clearly, there- 
" fore, Christianity recognises to the full truth, which, if 
once accepted, gives what the stability of society 
- requires—a basis wholly anterior to the wills of the 

individuals composing it. pete : 

It may well be contended that, even without any 
_ distinct faith in a personal God, all thoughtful obser- 
vation of humanity, whether under the vivid concen- 
trated light of our own inner consciousness, or in the 
vaguer and larger field of human history, must reveal! 

148 


= 


TO THE REQUIREMENTS OF HUMAN SOCIETY. 


; CSS GA SES eT aa SS SSE VS TS era ae BEN NS Fe 


the existence of some such basis. We talk of the 
reality of “laws” of society. Whatever be meant by. 
that unhappily ambiguous word “law,” we at any rate 
recognise by it some power constraining our own indi-_ 
vidual wills, and we can hardly accept asa satisfactory 
genesis of such a power the mere consent of a number 
of other human wills, however great. We are driven 
to seek it in some “ Law of Nature ””—of the whole 
universe, it may be, material and immaterial—or of 
humanity as such, in its spiritual independence ; and, 
with different degrees of clearness, we ascribe to such 
law a < Divine right.” As a matter of fact, many 
atheistic or pantheistic theorists have been the deter- 
mined advocates of despotism, and, in wrath against — 
individual self-assertion, have been ready to “ bid order 
reign” over a spiritual desolation, misnamed peace. 
But still for the mass of men there can be no doubt, 
either theoretically or historically, that in Monothe- 
ism, in the recognition of an almighty, all-wise, all- 
righteous personal God, the element of stability in 
society is most firmly and practically secured. The 
command to the troubled waves of individual energy, 
“Thus far shall ye come, and no farther,” must be 
spoken by a Personal Will. The attraction which is 
to create one great tide, overcoming all the eddies and 
surges of the sea of life, must come from a Heaven 
above. Perhaps a bare absolute Monotheism is apt to 
emphasize too sternly this one element of social life, 
even to the exclusion of the other. It is probably by 
: 149 


THE ADAPTATION OF CHRISTIANITY 


no accident, for example, that the religion of Islam 
seems to have thrown its zgis over absolute despotism. 
In the Judaism from which it mainly sprang, this 
tendency was kept in check by the division of con- 
secrated power. “The Lord’s anointed” was not 
only the king, but the prophet also, and the priest. 
When in Solomon the three characters were but par- 
tially united, the result was a heavy yoke. When One 
should come, who could wear on His brows, with un- 
questioned right, the threefold crown of the kingdom, 
the priesthood, and the prophethood, then this sove- 
reignty was recognised as one too great for any mere 
man to wield. But in the-bare, awful Monotheism of 
Mohammed these counteracting influences are swept: 
away. As the individual will itself is lost in the 
Kismet of absolute predestination, so its actual exer- 
cise is overborne by the majesty of the successor of 
the Prophet. The idea of Monotheism is “God over 
man.” As man becomes conscious of his own little- 
ness, blindness, weakness, sin, the conception of God 
as a Father is apt to pass, largely if not absolutely, 
into the more awful conception of Him as the 
Lawgiver and the Judge; and, in relation to human 
society, the Vor Dei is sought, not so much in the 
direct revelation to each soul, as in the voice of the 
“ powers that be” as “ordained by God.” The right 
to question its utterance fades out of view. It may 
therefore be true (as has been concluded -by many) 
that a bare Monotheism, especially when it holds 
150 


TO THE REQUIREMENTS OF HUMAN SOCIETY. 


predestination with absolute unlimited conviction, 


secures stability at the expense of liberty... And’. oe 


whenever this is done, life must die out from the 
fabric of society, and leave it standing in a dead, 
imposing magnificence, destined to fall crashing to 
the ground whenever a blast comes from the turbulent 
ocean of revolution. If any systems of Christianity 
have so. represented it, they have given some colour 
of reason to those who denounce religion in the 
interests of freedom. 
But Christianity is not a bare Monotheism. Its 
essence lies in thé revelation of “God in man.” By that 
revelation the reality of the Divine Image in man, on 
which his power of freedom depends, is reasserted, 
against all discoveries of his weakness, even against 
the humbling consciousness of his sin, and the chill 
terror which tells of the coming of death. The true 
sense of the Fatherhood of God is revived and renewed. 
The consciousness of a Holy Spirit, animating and 
sustaining, and yet not enslaving, our spirits, is brought 
out into vivid universal clearness. The very mystery 
of the Gospel—the Incarnation and the Atonement 
of Christ—asserts with the most startling emphasis the 
truth which St. Paul thought so fundamentally Chris- 
tian, but which some modern thinkers* have denied 
to Christianity, that man must be a “ fellow-worker 
with God” in the triumph of good over evil. Nor 
does it leave that truth on the cold heights of abstrac- 
* See, for example, Mill’s “ Essays on Religion,” Essay iil. p. 256. 


I5i 


_ THE ADAPTATION OF CHRISTIANITY — 

SAS at aa ria a tO iene. SGN iad ty 
tion,—it brings it down to the busy scenes of actual 
life. Now it assumes it as a thing of course, and only 
draws inferences from it; now it states it for the 
crises of life in all the impressiveness of paradox. 
The Apostles are not afraid even to contrast the 
liberty of the new covenant with the bondage of the 
old—glorying in the free individuality of the Spirit, as 
distinct from the constrained unity of the Law. : 

It is in this element of Christianity that we find the 
security for individual freedom. It cannot be doubted _ 
that it has destroyed slavery, whether embodied, as 
in Europe, in the old serfship, or, as in America, in 
the later forms of domestic slavery. It was significant : 
that the Scriptural defenders of slavery always drew 
their weapons mainly from the armoury of Judaism, 
It is equally significant that the New Testament a 
not think it needful or safe to denounce slavery : 
simply enunciates the principles which must ee 
destroy it, and leaves thenr to work themselves out. 
Nor can we well fail to trace to Christianity much of 
the assertion of individual freedom of thought, belief, 
or action, against either the tyranny of law or the 
subtler tyranny of public opinion. It was this aspect © 
of Christianity which perplexed and angered the 
enlightened. despotism of a Trajan or a Marcus 
Aurelius. Every martyr was, often unconsciously, 
a martyr for liberty. Against the claims of absolute 
power, even if, as afterwards, usurped in the name 
of Christ Himself, the answer has constantly gone 

152 


TO THE REQUIREMENTS OF HUMAN SOCIETY. 


forth, “Whether it be right to hearken unto you, 
- more than unto God, judge ye,” and act as ye shall — 
judge. “As for us, we cannot but speak.” There 
is a law of free conviction, higher than any law of © 
human power. Again, the very reverence for weak-- > 
ness, so characteristic of Christianity, in which its 
chivalry differs from mere heroism, whatever else it 


implies, is surely a recognition of the inviolable 


‘sacredness-of the human soul as such. — Similarly the 
plea for faith—the faith which must necessarily be in- 
dividual—warns off the foot of man from the spiritual 
soil over which only the Presence of God should 
move. In our own country, at least, it is historically 
true that the overthrow of absolute power was 
wrought in the name of religious faith, even more 
than of political liberty. A Christianity, which has 
no reverence for freedom, is a Christianity untrue to 
- one of its most fundamental truths. 

I contend, therefore, that Christianity vindicates its 
claim to be a religion for human society, by recog- 
nition, not of one, but of both of the elements, by 
which the fabric of society is maintained. It does 
“not, indeed, attempt to harmonize them in any 
definite formula. When our Lord gave the memo- 
rable answer to the question as to the tribute-money, 
He did not, as His hearers probably desired, separate 
by a hard and fast line the things which may be 


__ given to Cesar from the things which must be denied 


him in the name. of God. His silence here was a 
he : 


THE ADAPTATION OF CHRISTIANITY 


part, and an important part, of His teaching. From 
time to time, no doubt, the voice of Christianity must 
speak, to mediate or to decide, in the contests between 


authority and freedom. But its application of the : 


principles of the Gospel is for the time only: the 
principles, and these alone, are eternal. The Gospel 
itself is content to recognise both Individualism and 
Socialism, as necessarily co-existent, and to assert the 
sacredness of both, as a part of the law of Nature, which 


is the law of God. Hence it is that it has a suitability — “@ 


to all phases and stages of society—to the immobility 
of the East, and the restlessness of the West—to the 
early times when society had hardly emerged from the 
simple form of the family, and to the complicated 
developments of our maturer civilisation. If it is ever 
supposed to be an advocate for either principle alone, it 
must be because only one element of its full perfection 
is set forth. In a non-Christian society of modern 
days, the first and most obvious loss is the loss 
of stability. But in the inevitable Nemesis which 
waits on anarchy, freedom also will be swept away. 
There are not wanting signs in the anti-Christian 
systems of our day of devotion to a mere enlightened 
despotism as a remedy against license, or to a rigid 
socialism, in which individuality is proscribed. The 
time may come again, when Christianity shall be in-— 
voked as the protector, not of order, but of individual 
freedom. 

So-much the consideration of first principles seem 

154 


TO THE REQUIREMENTS OF HUMAN SOCIETY. 


to teach us as to the peculiar appropriateness of 
Christianity to human society. I may remark here, 
in passing, how singular a testimony to the super- . 
natural character of Christianity is afforded by its 
solution of the great social problem, which undoubt- — 
edly baffled and perplexed the greatest thinkers of 
antiquity. ‘That by any ordinary process of develop- 
ment, conceptions so eminently philosophic in their 
character should have arisen in a comparatively 
unphilosophic race, and principles absolutely catholic 
in their applicability to all races and times should 
~ have been the offspring of the notorious Jewish ex- 
clusiveness, is to my mind incomprehensible— a 
miracle more difficult of acceptance than any which 
can be presented to our faith. Grant the great 
fact of the Incarnation, and the result follows, by an 
inference which the simplest could learn, or at least 


_ be taught, to draw. Deny it, and it would be difficult 


indeed to give any adequate explanation of the Apos- 
tolic teaching, or of its result in the Christian Church, 

II. But I leave the consideration of the abstract 
principles of the Gospel, and pass on to what perhaps 
may be considered the real point at issue between 
Christianity and unbelief on this subject—the prac- 
tical application of these first principles in what we 
call especially Christian morality. 

Before doing this I would remind you of two pre- 
liminary considerations. 

The first is, that,since Christianity is based on certain 

155 


THE ADAPTATION OF CHRISTIANITY 


great truths or facts, expressing the relation of God _ 
to man, its creed is not, and cannot be, a code of = 
tules, an order ‘of rites, a system of philosophical Ee 


theories. It is simply a declaration of certain facts, 
in or anterior to the history of the world. As a 
teaching of Monotheism, it declares that God made 
all things in heaven and earth, and that He is the 
Father of men, made in His own image. As pro- 
perly Christianity, it declares ‘that the Son of God 
took upon Him our flesh, in it lived, died, rose again 
for us, and ascended to sit for ever on the right hand 
of God—that the Holy Ghost, proceeding from the 


Father, sent by the Son, actually works in the souls ~ 
of His people, to inspire, to teach, to sanctify. Of 
these -great truths Christianity presents two witnesses. 4 
—the Bible and the Church—that is, the written. 4 
Word and the embodied grace of Christ. Yet it is a 
not properly the Bible, or the Church, or both, but 


the great truths of which these bear witness, which 
form the ultimate basis of Christianity. 


Now these so-called truths may be falsehoods; the. 


witnesses to them may be deceived or deceiving, 
But it is clear that, if they are truths at all, they 


must be unchangeable in themselves, and imperishable F 
in their effects on man. Rules and rites may change, 


as circumstances alter; theories may last only for 
a time, as being necessarily imperfect exhibitions of 
principles. But what has been has been. Its effects 


- must live, and adapt their power to every change, 


156 


t 


TO THE REQUIREMENTS OF HUMAN SOCIETY. 


be it what it may, which passes on man. And truths 
of fact, moreover, are the property (so to speak) of. 
_ all. Their effects, if they are real, must touch, not a 
- few souls here and there, but the whole race of man. 

Of these effects some are wholly independent of 
man. They belong to the working of the laws of — 
God; all that each man can do is partially to cut 
himself off from them, or open his soul to them. But 
_ so far as these consequences suggest and demand the 
_ co-operation of men, they become the great principles 
of Christian morality. They are always principles, not 
formal rules. They must, of course, embody and 
enforce themselves in definite rules of action. But 
these outward rules—be they ever so Divine—will 
necessarily change and pass away. They are but the 
mortal letter: they who would imprison the growing 
spiritual life of man within them make them “the 
letter that killeth” by the very contact of its mor- 
tality. Even of the Ten Commandments our Lord 
taught us this in the Sermon on the Mount. And 
when, later in His ministry, He was asked, “Which 
is the great commandment?” He gave no formal 
rule. His answer asserted two fundamental prin- 
ciples, and implied a third. The love of self He took 
for granted ; the love of our neighbour He empha- 
sized ; and above both He exalted the love of God. 

And this leads me naturally to my second pre- 
liminary consideration, that (as Hooker puts it) the 
“Jaw supernatural” implies and supplements the 
157 


/ 


THE ADAPTATION OF CHRISTIANITY - 


———_— 


“law natural.” It accepts the fundamental principles 
of human nature, as it came from the hand of God: 
its task is partly to supplement those principles as 
imperfect, partly to regenerate and purify them, as 
existing in a fallen nature. Hence, so far as the 
principles of Christian morality are embodied in rules, 


these rules take for granted what man previously 


knew ; they supply (so to speak) the dominant note, 
always implying certain under-tones of harmony, 
although sometimes needing for a time to be brought 
out in great and even excessive clearness. The “New 
Testament morality ’—that is, the portion recorded to 
us in Holy Scripture of the distinct and formal moral 
teaching of our Lord and His Apostles—cannot be 
taken to express the whole of the moral life which 
He intended to grow up in His Church. Just as it 
implied the old Jewish law and ritual in all who first 


preached the Gospel, so, to His Divine mind per- . 


fectly, to the Apostles, and especially to St. Paul, in 
degree, it implied all that the same God had taught 
the Gentiles.* It laid hold of the three great threads 
of the actual civilisation of man at the appointed 
time when He appeared—the knowledge of the Greek, 
the law and order of the Roman, as well as the holi- 
ness of the Jew. It moulded and regenerated all; 
it ignored and entirely superseded none. 


* Students of Church history will remember how emphatically 
this view was advanced by Clement of Alexandria and other 
great writers of the Alexandrine school. 

158 


TO THE REQUIREMENTS OF HUMAN SOCIETY. 


Suffer me to illustrate these two principles by 
notable examples. 

On the first, let me remind you of the error of 
those who would guide all Christian society literally 
and absolutely by the formal commands of our Lord 
to His disciples, especially those of His earliest and 
most rudimentary teaching in the Sermon on the 
Mount ; who, if such an attempt seem to fail in our 
own time, either teach us by implication that His 
wisdom was imperfect, and His religion a thing of 
yesterday, or brand the Christianity of our own day 
as a mere civilised and softened heathenism, apostate 
from Him whose name it bears.* We can well under- 
stand the inclination to make His words eternal in 
their letter as well as their spirit, when even an un- 
believer in His Divine nature has suggested that we 
can best translate abstract morality into the concrete 
by considering, in any case actually presented to us, 
how Christ would have us think and speak and act.t 


* I refer not merely to such works as “ The Life of Joshua 
Davidson” and “ Modern Christianity a Civilised Heathenism.” 
Even in Mills Essay on Liberty (in the section on “ Liberty 
of Thought and Discussion”) the same line of thought prevails; 
and Christians who cannot accept it are accused of considering 
“the doctrines in their integrity” as merely “serviceable to pelt 
adversaries with.” 

t+ See “ Mill’s Essays on Religion,” p. 255. “ Nor even now 
would it be easy, even for an unbeliever, to find a better trans- 
lation of the rule of virtue from the abstract to the concrete, than 
to endeavour so to live that Christ would approve our life.” The 
confession is a remarkable one, and it seems difficult to find a 


159 


THE ADAPTATION OF CHRISTIANITY 


But still it cannot be. A rule, to be living and effec- 
tive, must adapt itself to the special needs of the 
times and the men to whom it is given. When these 
pass away, the form of the rule must change with 
them ; the inner life in it “fulfils itself in many ways.” 
The ales for example, so often discussed in anti- 
Christian controversy—of non-resistance to evil, of 
unbounded and unquestioning almsgiving, of absolute 
surrender of the wealth of the world and all that it 
will buy—these simply embody the great principle of 
complete self-sacrifice for love to man or love to God. 
At the time of their utterance they called for a literal 
obedience: first from the Apostles, and afterwards 
from the church of Pentecost they received such 
obedience. So, and so perhaps only, could a note be 
struck, which, by a simple massive unison, should 
startle a sleeping world as with a trumpet sound. 
But it is the principle alone which is eternal. Its 
application, then absolute, had to be tempered here- 
after, not, indeed, by any regard to self—for this would 
have contradicted the leading principle—but by regard 
to the good of the offender and the good of society. 
The same love, which first dictated these rules, might 
afterwards equally forbid their literal exercise. When 


sufficient basis for it in the belief that the Prophet of Nazareth 
is to be placed “in the very first rank of men of sublime genius” 
(p. 254). Mr. Mill himself evidently, as a “rational sceptic,” 
inclines to a higher view, though one infinitely below what 
Christianity implies. 

160 


TO THE REQUIREMENTS OF HUMAN SOCIETY. 


Carlo Borromeo embraced, entreated, rewarded, one 
who had sought to be his assassin, he erred, though 
in a noble error; he had a right to sacrifice his own 
indignation, but he did no real kindness to the crimi- 
nal, and he would have done, had not the law inter- 
vened, a cruel unkindness to society, * 

In regard to the second, I would suggest to you 
to consider the opposite treatment in the New Testa- 
ment of what we may call the two self-regarding 
virtues, purity and manliness. Purity is emphasized 
again and again ; it is rekindled by the sacred fire of 
holiness from the altar of God; the violation of it is 
branded as a sacrilegious pollution of the Christ in 
_us. Manliness is scarcely noticed; once only in the 
New Testament are Christians bidden to “quit them 
like men, and be strong;” and even of the strength 
that is in them “to overcome,” they are rather 
reminded that it is an “unction” from above, a 
“strength made perfect in weakness.” Can we fail 
to understand this difference? Read the story of the 
unutterable impurity of the age, unrestrained by the 
enlightenment of Greece and the stern order of Rome, 
hardly affected even by the greater purity of the 
Jewish life, because it imprisoned itself iia; Gere- 
monial cleanness and a sanctimonious pride?" You 
will not wonder that. Christian purity came as @n-a. 


* T have quoted an historical example. Many of my readers 
may remember a similar picture in the region of fiction, from 
the hand of the author of “Les Misérables,” | 

161 M 


THE ADAPTATION OF CHRISTIANITY 


new commandment, with an angelic presence which 
needed to be heralded in letters of light. Read, on 
the other hand, the moral teaching of theage. You will 
find that “manliness” (which I take to be rightful self- 
assertion) was then exaggerated to an idolatry. The 
one type of heathen virtue was the Stoic self-suff- 
ciency ; the one type of Jewish piety was the Phari- 
saic self-righteousness. Can you wonder that in the 
first proclamation of Gospel morality the opposite 


class of virtue had to be emphasized, and the over-_ 


weening self-assertive element of human nature to 
be rebuked or restrained rather than sanctioned ? 
And yet, in the Christian Church, manliness grew 
quickly up, under the consecration of far higher and 
lovelier principles, till, through the heroism of the 
martyr, and the self-control of the ascetic, it issued 
finally in the form of that chivalry which carried 
courage to an excess, even a fantastic excess, such 
as Greece and Rome never knew. 

You may see another application of the same 
principle, if you consider the treatment of the two 
great relative principles of duty and love. Both, 
doubtless, are accepted and blessed. “ To be true in 
love” is the Christian motto, as it is the character of 
“the Head” “into whom we are to grow up.” But 


who can be blind to the predominant, the almost 


overwhelming, advocacy of the claims of love? Do 
we ask why this was so? The answer is surely to be 


sought in the fact that duty, especially public duty, 
162 


Saf Ps on 
Se ee ee et eee we 


ee Oe ete ee ee 


¢ 


FO THE REQUIREMENTS OF HUMAN SOCIETY. 


was the watchword of all the higher morality of man, 
as it then existed on the earth. It lingered even in 
the corruption of the Roman Empire; it flourished 
_ in the idolatry.of the Law, which was at once the. 
strength and the weakness of the Jewish nationality, 
But love seemed to the heathen moralist to be an 
unmanageable factor in the “ Divine Republic” of the 
soul, to be coerced and reduced almost to the level of 
an appetite ; so that his philosophical nomenclature 
had no word for it, which did not savour either of 
personal limitation (piA/a) or of half-sensual passion 
(pws). Love among the Jews was limited and nar- 
rowed by the question, “ Who is my neighbour?” till 
it became a kind of extended selfishness, excessive 
towards all within the pale, fierce or pitiless towards 
those without. The principle of Love as a world-wide 
principle needed to be rescued from oblivion, almost 
to be created anew. Therefore it was exalted, not 
only rising above duty, but at times almost seeming 
to overbear duty. But the perpetuation of that sole 
exaltation of Love, then absolutely needful, has been 
urged, not quite unjustly, against the prevalent 
Christian teaching of our own changed day. 

Taking, then, these two guiding considerations with 
-us, let us consider how Christianity does actually deal 
with human society. 

It seems to me that Christianity cannot accept as 
a fundamental basis, or carry out as a dominant 
principle of action, the conception of human society 

163 


THE ADAPTATION OF CHRISTIANITY 


as founded simply on the consciousness of mutual 


needs. For this theory regards society as ifit had no 


basis of natural unity, as if, in sustaining it, men had 
simply to regard their own interests, exercise their 
own will, and leave all to come right by a competition 
of such interests, in which the race must be always to 
the swift, and the battle to the strong. This is, I 
suppose, the creed of the Political Economist pure 
and simple; it is the application of the wider prin- 
ciple of the “ struggle for existence,” which is supposed 
to rule in the animal world. Now it is the effort 
of even the highest humanity to correct this selfish 
principle by nobler and more spiritual elements. The 
very fact that the word “selfish” is discredited in our 
ordinary language is decisive as to its power so to 
correct it. And a morality stamped with the sign 
of the cross, and professing to follow “the mind 
which was in Christ Jesus,” is self-condemned, if for a 
moment it neglect that- corrective duty. 

But, while this is obviously true, it is equally clear 
that neither reason nor Christianity condemns utterly 
this principle of self-love and self-assertion in its 
own true, but subordinate, sphere.’ It is too often 
forgotten that our Lord’s golden rule takes the love 
of self for granted. In urging that the love of our 
neighbour should be “like it,” He clearly means 
that it should be like it in kind, though it may well 
surpass it in degree. Therefore,as this love of our 
neighbour is at once a social instinct and a moral 

164 


TO THE REQUIREMENTS OF HUMAN SOCIETY. 


principle of thoughtful action, our Lord obviously 
sanctions self-love, nut merely as an instinct to be 
allowed for, but as a principle to be recognised among 
the guiding principles in life. Nor is this all. It 
has even been made a reproach to Christianity, by the — 
advocates of the “Religion of Humanity,” that it 
appeals to the sense of our own highest interest, in 
bidding a man work out his own salvation, and save 
his own soul. The reproach would be just, if the 
Gospel made this man’s chief duty; it has been just 
against many theories of the Christian faith, many 
forms of the so-called religious life. But it is no 
reproach, it is rather an evidence of truth to human 
nature, when this self-love is placed in its due 
position, as the third, and the third only, of the great 
moral laws of life. 

Accordingly, the general tenour of Christian 
morality, as such, is at once to acknowledge this 
rightful power of individualism, and to keep it in 
its due subordination. Its acknowledgment’ of the 
right of property, which the tenth commandment 
manifestly sanctions, and which was urged by St. 
Peter on Ananias, even in the first ardour of self- 
sacrifice in the early Church, is surely decisive. St. 
Paul’s declaration, that “if a man will not work, neither 
shall he eat,” is enough to satisfy the sternest preacher 
of self-reliance. It is perfectly true that we hold 
property to be a trust from God, to be used for His 
glory and man’s good, But, in so doing, we necessarily 

i 3 165. 


THE ADAPTATION OF CHRISTIANITY 


recognise its rightful existence between man and 
man as a law of nature. Its acquisition depends on 


the great law of natural inequality; its transmission 


on the different degrees of natural unity between man 
and man. Socialism, which ignores both these laws, 
can only press Christianity into its service by taking 
what is accidental and temporary in its system for 
what is essential and eternal. The Gospel unques- 
tionably recognises the power of self-interest—and 


therefore of self-defence, self-assertion, and the like — 


—as one of the forces which must move the world. 
But still, following here also the example of its 
Master, the Christian morality rather takes this force 
for granted, as one which requires little fostering, 
and which in human nature, as it is, is likely 
rather to need depression than exaltation. Its 
quarrel with the political economist begins when his 
principles are asserted, as if they could cover the 
whole field of human nature, or meet all the exi- 
gencies of human life. Social affections (as Butler 
showed long ago), are at least as original and as 
powerful an element in human nature as self-love. 
The trials and distresses of life often arise from 
causes beyond the control of those who suffer from 
them ; and they must be met by other. influences 
than those of a rigid individualism. Accordingly 
Christianity, from the Apostolic times downwards, 
has always thrown much of its strength into the work 


of the limitation of self-love. At times, as when our 
166 


TO,THE REQUIREMENTS OF. HUMAN SOCTETLTY.3- 


Lord laid His special command of voluntary poverty 
on the young ruler—as when, in the Church of Pente- . 
cost, individual property was laid at the Apostles’ 
feet—as when, in the Middle Ages, ascetic examples 
of utter self-abnegation bore their heroic witness 
against a world of selfish violence—it even finds it 
needful to overbear self-love entirely for the moment. 
At all times it holds up the glory of self-sacrifice, for 
individuals, for mankind, for God Himself, as that 
which sinful man needs to have enforced upon him, 
and that which, if-man were not sinful, would be natu- 
rally recognised as the sovereign principle of life. Yet, | 
putting exceptional occasions aside, it never denies 
the action of self-interest. Even the hard lore of 
political economy has its place, if it will be content 
with that place, under the supremacy of the Gospel. 
Closely connected with this subject, though leading 
us to a distinct field of thought, is the relation of 
Christianity to what is called material civilisation,— 
to the provision of the necessaries, the comforts, the 
adornments, the enjoyments of life. What is its 
ptinciple here? It is the absolute subordination, 
in the self which it has recognised, of the flesh to 
the spirit, the mortal to the immortal. It asks, as 
to all these external things, “What shall it profit a 
man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own 
soul?” It undoubtedly urges that a man should 
be able to sit loose to these things; and, that he 
may be able to do so in times of crisis, it bids him 
167 


THE ADAPTATION OF CHRISTIANITY 


exercise a habit of self-control, and, if necessary, — 


self-discipline or self-chastisement, as a part of 
regular Christian life. But the method of the ap- 
plication of this principle must vary, according to 
time and place, circumstance and character, from the 
most severe asceticism to the free and thankful use 
of all good things. The poverty of the Galilee of our 
Lord’s time was very different from the poverty of 
St. Giles’s in our own. What was spiritual help 
in the one case might be spiritual hindrance in the 
other. In these days, indeed, the anxieties of a 
pinching and oppressive poverty may be at least as 
injurious as the effeminating effects of luxury. For in 
either case men rest too much on “the things that 
perish in the using,” and so have no sufficient 
spiritual leisure for the things which abide for ever. 
The ideal, both of the individual life, and of the life 
of society, is to be free for the things of the spirit, 
and to have the lower capacities so far satisfied as 
to conduce to the cultivation of the higher. How 
this shall best be realised, is a problem, the elements 
of which vary from time to time. In our own age, too 


apt to glory in material advancement as if it were 


true civilisation, too prone (especially in England) to 
the accumulation of wealth which may be spent in 
luxury, Christian morality can hardly be wrong in 
lending all its force to the plea which all thoughtful 
philanthropy must make, partly for greater simplicity 
of our external life, and still more for more thorough 

168 ES 


LO THE REQUIREMENTS OF HUMAN SOCIETY. 


culture of the higher forces, which will keep the in- 
fluences of that external life in their right place of 
subordination, But still, it is, as a rule, temperance, 
not abstinence, that it would preach. Abstinence is 
but the medicine of spiritual disease; temperance is 
the regimen of spiritual health. No one who studies 
the picture of our Lord’s own life, or even the cari- 
catures of it, presented by the cavillers of His own 
day, or the “idyllic” painters of ours——no one who 
enters into the central principle of the Gospel, as 
exalting the spirit above the law, and _ therefore 
trusting in positive rather than negative influences, 
—will doubt that the relation of Christianity to 
- material civilisation is one of independence, and ‘not 
of hostility. . 

‘But I pass on from this selfish aspect of our social 
relation, which Christianity recognises, but hardly 
enforces, to the view of society as dependent on the 
nature of man, and therefore having a sacredness of 
its own, on which Christianity undoubtedly rejoices 
to dwell) The unity or brotherhood of all men is 
one of its fundamental truths. That this unity 
may be strengthened, and, if need be, enforced, 
by mutual needs, no man can deny ; that it is ex- 
pressed in the reality of mutual affections, we freely 
acknowledge. But it is (so the Gospel declares) 
based on neither of these things. God has made men 
of one blood, children of one Father. Unity, as truly 
as individuality, is a law of nature, that is, of God. 

169 


THE ADAPTATION OF CHRISTIANITY 


Now the first form of this natural unity is clearly 
the unity of the family—between father and son, 
between brother and brother, between husband and 


wife. No one can be ignorant how essentially 


sacred Christianity makes this unity, which to 
Utopian dreams of socialism is apt to be a perplexity 


or an offence. With marvellous profoundness of 


treatment St. Paul (in the Epistle to the Ephesians) 
sees in its two great bonds shadows of Divine 
relationship to man. Fatherhood is sacred because 
we have all one Father in heaven. Marriage is 
consecrated, as a type of the mystic union between 


Christ and His Church. Steadily, even sternly, 


both the Gospel, and the Church proclaiming that 
Gospel, stand forth to bar the way against profligacy, 
against liberty, falsely so called, against pleas of 
public or private convenience, and the like, when 
they seek to violate the sanctity of the home. There 
have been times, indeed, in the history of Christianity, 


when it has faltered in the proclamation of that — 


sanctity, overborne by a supposed call of devotion 
to God, or of that devotion to humanity, which 
Socialism now-a-days pleads against what it calls 
domestic narrowness. But these times of failure 
have been exceptional and transient. Its teaching, on 
a whole, has been powerful beyond all human power 
to preserve this, the first, and yet the most enduring, 
of all forms of human society. 


Next in order comes the form of political 
170 ; 


LO THE REQUIREMENTS OF HUMAN SOCIETY. 


unity, growing out of the family into the tribe, out 
of the tribe into the nation. That this is a real 
natural unity, few will doubt. How much of it is 
to be assigned to the power of race, how much to 
the influence of circumstances, physical and moral, 
acting through generations, may be subject of con- 
troversy., But its reality is independent of these 
questions. The marked and vivid form in which 
it exists in modern Europe, has grown up since ~ 
the days of the first proclamation of Christianity. 
There was then but one vigorous nationality, under 
the levelling sway of the Roman Empire ; and this 
nationality, the Jewish, was alien from the Gospel, 
and the foe of its catholicity, and moreover was 
already marked for death. But still political unity 
is distinctly consecrated’ in the New Testament. 
Probably it recognises nct principally what we call 
patriotism and public spirit, which have flourished 
in more ancient and more modern times; it deals 
rather with loyalty to “the powers that be, as or- 
dained of God,” even when Christian loyalty had to 
be paid to a pagan emperor, and that emperor a 
Nero. This could not be otherwise in the actual 
political condition of the time; and long after that 
time patient submission, rather than enthusiastic 
service, was all that Christians could pay to an idola- 
trous and oppressive power. Not till freedom and 
independence came back, did what we call patriotism 
revive. Then it went back largely to the older Testa- 
I7I 


THE ADAPTATION OF CHRISTIANITY 


ment, the covenant of the chosen nation; and in so 
doing, it sometimes forgot the difference which sepa- 


rates Judaism from Christianity.* Still the fact: 


remains, that Christianity distinctly consecrates politi- 
cal unity, even under the pale and dreary grandeur 
of the Roman Empire. We may well argue a fortiori 
for its sanction of the nobler and intenser national 
unity of later days. 

Then, beyond the family and the nation, there is 
the unity of the race of man. How little this was 
recognised in uncivilised days, when “stranger” and 


) 


“enemy ” were synonymous terms; how hard the 


pride of civilised man found and still finds it to 


believe that there is no difference between “ Greek 
and barbarian, bond and free”; how patriotism, 
especially in the pre-Christian ages, was apt to be- 
come an enmity to the human race at large, and to 
dispense with the simplest laws of truth and justice in 
dealing with foreigners; how in our days physio- 


lozical science is tempted to place impassable barriers - 


between the Caucasian race and the Bosjesman or 
the savage of Terra del Fuego—all this we know 
only too well. Slavery was the practical representa- 
tion of this denial of human unity. Gradually, indeed, 


* This is notable, for example, at the time in English history 
when, in the reign of Elisabeth, patriotism and loyalty were 
exaggerated almost to an idolatry. The English were “ God’s 
chosen people”; their enemies (the Spaniards especially) were 
as Canaanites or Amalekites. 

172 


TO THE REQUIREMENTS OF HUMAN SOCIETY. 


the idea of human unity emerged ; it wrote itself on 
the language of men; it dawned on the philosophers 
of Greece and the jurists of Rome. The universal 
spread of Greek philosophy and of Roman law was 
the pioneer of the catholicity of the Church of Christ. 
- But yet it is not too much to say that Christianity, 
which has been content to give its powerful sanction 
to the unity of the family or the nation, has here 
simply transformed into a warm living reality what 
was before a ghostly abstraction. The miracle of 
Pentecost was the visible sign of this regeneration of 
the world. So far as our “common humanity” is a 
power, and not a name, it exists through the power 
of the Gospel. Commerce, which is the expression 
of the unity of mutual needs, not only fails to 
enforce it, but sins against it again and again. 
Philanthropy, on a purely human basis of brother- 
hood, has never yet proved itself a world-wide power. 
Christianity, and as yet Christianity almost alone, has 
proved itself the messenger of universal brotherhood 
pos-man:, ~ Phe. words.“ Our i} Bather” - and:..Qur 
Saviour” have had a power which the “ enthusiasm 
of humanity” could never rival. 

And yet, as if all these forms of natural unity were 
not enough, we know that men are always forming 
voluntary unions, from harmony of character or from 
unity of object. Each makes these for himself; and 
yet, when made, they bind him who made them. In 
lower degree this is true of all such voluntary asso- 

173 


THE ADAPTATION OF CHRISTIANITY 


ciations. How specially true of that voluntary union 
of marriage, which is the link between these volun- 


tary bonds and the bonds of natural unity! It rests 


with us to accept or refuse it; yet, when it is formed, 
all earthly ties give way to it. “A man shall leave 
father and mother, and cleave to his wife.” 

Now all these forms of unity Christianity recog- 
nises. But one form of unity it creates in the Catholic 
Church, marvellously, in its first origin, uniting both 
kinds of unity. Like the marriage which is made 
its type, it was a voluntary unity under the free 
conviction and self-devotion of faith; and yet, once 
made, it asserted itself as supreme. Unlike that 
marriage tie, if once offered to man, it cannot without 
spiritual responsibility be refused. It is through the 


creation of the Church that the unity of all men 


starts into a living reality. All men are, or may be, 
its members. All “peoples, nations, and languages ” 
find their place within its pale. It is a unity which 
is based upon the essentially spiritual principles of a 
regenerate human nature. Therefore it goes deeper 
than those which depend on circumstances or second- 


ary principles. Therefore its power has been wider a 


than any unity of family, of nation, of race. And 
yet it is infinitely freer and more elastic than any, 
—less liable even to deadness, incapable of death. 

It is obvious from all these considerations how Chris- 


tianity enforces unity in all these various forms. I 


do not, of coursé, say that in the history of this sinful 
174 


ae 
ee an 
ay 
aye: 


ore ne ae a 
ee eM IR OS, 


TO THE REQUIREMENTS OF HUMAN SOCIETY. ~ 


and imperfect world there has been~no clashing of 
these various principles of unity, in which one crosses 
and mars the others. But take the history of the 
world broadly, and Christianity has been the chief 
social and uniting force—compared with which all 
others have been as nothing. ; 
Its great principles of social action are expressed in 
the famous formula already referred to (AdnOevew év 
ayatrn). Now of these two principles I would remark 
that the principle of truth (or righteousness) strongly 
recognises individuality; the principle of love, without 
ignoring it, depresses it to a secondary place. In the 
conception of “being true,” there is, first, the love for 
and the search for truth, in which each man, though 
he may receive the aid of others, is ultimately alone. 
For each man must think, each man must believe, for 
himself. There is, next, the speaking truth, and acting 
righteousness ; and this, while it necessarily is a social 
act, impossible without contact with others, still recog- 
nises ourselves as distinct from them, them as distinct 
from us. We call its operation “duty,”’—the giving 
to all what is due from us to them, whether we care 
for them or not, whether they are friends, strangers, 
or enemies; and in conceiving what that duty is, we 
are always alone with our conscience or before God. 
The merely righteous man is isolated, even in the 
crowd whom he serves, and who serve him. On 
the other hand, the essential point. of the principle 
of love is self-forgetfulness. By it we live in the life 
175 : 


THE ADAPTATION OF CHRISTIANITY 


of others; our hearts (we say) are “bound up with 


theirs,’ whether in personal affection to individuals, or 


in collective love to the race. Our individuality — 


remains; else how could we love? Yet it is for the 
time forgotten. Love may even become an idolatry, 
in which all self-respect, all conscience, all truth, are 
lost. 

All societies must be held together by both these 
bonds. The one gives solidity, the other enthusiasm, 
to social life. Yet in different societies the proportion 
of the combination of these two principles varies. In 
the family, for example, there may be more of love; 
in the State, more of duty. Christianity, as I have 
already said, at its first proclamation strongly em- 
phasized love. In its continual preaching, I suppose 
that love must stiJl predominate, especially in the 
form of mercy to a suffering and a sinful world. - But 


the degree of that predominance will vary: there 


may be times when truth has to assert itself against 
love; there will be no time in which truth can be 
ignored or forgotten. If it be, then Christianity will 


deserve the reproach of effeminacy, sentimentality, —_ 


and unnaturalness, sometimes urged against it now. ° 


But if truth be duly preserved and honoured, I do not 
think we need fear to emphasize love. The power of 
self, as it will defend self-interest, so also will preserve 
the greater individuality which belongs to righteous- 
ness. 
If it be asked, How can Christianity reconcile the 
176 


TO THE REQUIREMENTS OF HUMAN SOCTET Ye 


principle of individualism which it accepts, and the | 
principle of unity which it glorifies ? the answer brings 
~ us back to the first principles with which we began. 
The unity which best preserves individuality is the 
one which does not bind men directly together, but 
unites them indirectly through a unity with God, in » 
which each is still individual, while all are united to 
the one Centre. Such is the unity represented in the 
type of the One Body, in which the New Testament 
delights. The foot is one with the hand, not because 
they are linked directly together, but because each is 
united to the life of the one heart, and guided by the 
thought of the one head. The fundamental concep- 
tion of the Church of Christ is the recognition of a 
real spiritual tie between each soul in God, manifested 
in the Incarnation, knit afresh, where sin had wealk- 
ened it, in the Atonement. In fact, it is the Mediation 
of Christ, in all its length and breadth, which makes 
_ that tie a reality. We are not left on the’ oreat 
plain of earth, with the heaven of a bare Monotheism 
immeasurably above us, up to which we may look for 
the revelation of God’s will to guide our course, and 
from which there come down the showers of His 
beneficence, the thunders of His righteous wrath. 
We see a track of light left by the Ascension of 
Christ ; and the rays of that light are as the cords of 
unity, down which God’s grace thrills to each soul, 
up which shoots the reflex current of that soul’s 
love, and by which the soul itself is gradually being 
L727). N 


THE ADAPTATION OF CHRISTIANITY 


drawn onward and upward to the heaven where it has 
its own recognised place. : 
This conception of a spiritual unity, “hidden with 
Christ in God,” belongs, no doubt, emphatically and 
properly, to the Church of Christ. Nevertheless, it 
has its secondary applications under all forms of 
society. When once the tie to God is recognised, all 
else follows. In no other way, so far as the world 
has yet seen, can the sacredness of the individual life 
be guarded from the encroachments of society, and 
yet society kept safe from the disrupting power of 
mere individualism. | 
It is true—we confess it with shame—that by the 
weakness, the errors, the sins of us Christians, this 
social power of Christianity is often weakened, some- 
times paralysed, sometimes even perverted. But we 
ask, first, that the true ideal of Christianity be regarded, 
and that the Gospel’s prophecies of its own slow and 
interrupted progress be not forgotten. Next, even 
as Christianity is, we ask that it be compared with 
all other systems of social life, whether such as have 
been realised in days past, or even such as float now 
over our heads, in the cloud-land of mere theory. 
We do not fear lest it should fail under either test. 
We compare societies where Christianity reigns 
even with an imperfect power, with those in which 
it is ignored, and in which men are wandering on 


bewildered in the search for a new gospel. We ask 


in vain, if Christianity be rejected, for any power 
178 


~ SHH) 
Deve? 

a =e 
Sap eae eae 


LO THE REQUIREMENTS OF HUMAN SOCIETY. 


adequate to take its place. The deification of the 
Universum, the cultus of humanity, simply efface 
all individuality. Yet even these are better than the 
mere societies of expediency—the “ limited liability 
companies ” political and social—which mere individu- 
alism has to offer. We understand, as we look on the 
dreary prospect, the irreverent and yet significant 
confession, “If there be no God, it would be needful 
to invent one.” In the search for God, we come back 
to the one true Teacher; with the words, “Lord, to 
whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal 
life.” “ For-this is the life eternal, to know the true 
God, and Jesus Christ, whom He hath sent.” 

I commend to your thoughts this slight outline of 
a great subject. Of one thing I would remind you in 
conclusion—that the questions of human society are 
very prominent questions in our own day. The reign 

of extreme Individualism, in thought, in politics, in 
| religion, is certainly over. The power of Socialism in 
all its forms, legitimate and illegitimate, is probably 
on the rise. The theories of the day which aim at 
a total reconstitution of society find that Christianity 
stands in their way; and they hope to attack it 
mainly through the weak points left by ignorance, by 
delusion, or by perversion, of its social power. They 
must be met not by a blind instinct, however healthy, 
of Conservatism, but by a thoughtful examination of 
what Christianity now is in its relation to society, 
and.a determination that what it ought to be, that 

179 


CHRISTIANITY AND HUMAN SOCIETY. 


(God willing) it shall be. The evidence of Chris- 
tianity, here as elsewhere, which will tell most, is not 
the exhibition of its original credentials,—needful as 
the repetition of such exhibition is,—but the manifest- 
ation of its beneficent power. The common sense of 
man will answer then, if perplexed by speculative 


difficulties, “ Whether it can be proved to be of God,” 


by this or that metaphysical proof of yours, “I know 
“ One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind” 
- without it, “now I see”—see my way, as through the 
struggles of individual life, so also through the intri- 
cacies and contradictions of society—see my way 
through this world, and lose it not even in the dark- 
ness which separates this world from the world to 
come. 


” 


not 


180 


POA ee NE Eee eG eee. ee, Ce 


ar | 
dae blica Asa Re a a ta er 
ee eee pn ny eae a er) Saye ene”) ean 


co 


< 
) a epee 


We 


THE EVIDENCE TO CHRISTIANITY ARISING 
TOW tl LS ADAPLALION 97. O ALL & Lgiee 
DEEPER WANTS OF THE HUMAN HEART. 


BY THE 


REV. PETER LORIMER, D.D., 
Professor of Theology in the English Presbyterian College London. 


THE EVIDENCE TO CHRISTIANITY ARISING 
LROM LL ADAPTATION LO ALL TIT, 
DEEPER WANTS OF THE HUMAN HEART. 


THE subject of Lecture which has fallen to my share 
in the present.series is a very practical one. It is not 
a learned subject, requiring the aids of classical and 
other ancient erudition to handle it. All the deeper 
needs of the human heart can be learned well enough 
from our own consciousness and experience. In order 
to know them, we have only to know ourselves. It 
would be easy, indeed, to gather illustrations of them 
from all the religions of the world, both ancient and 
modern; for all popular religions have proceeded 
more or less upon the moral and religious needs of 
the race; ard have sought, with more or less success, 
_ to meet and satisfy them. And all the literatures of 
the world, both ancient and modern, might easily be 
laid under contribution to the same end; for all 
poetry of the highest and truest kind is a mirror 
of the human heart, and loves to interpret its deepest 
meanings, aspirations, and cravings. But what need 
to go in quest of such far-fetched informations upon a 
183 . 


LAE EVIDENCE ALO CHRISTIANITY AS ADAPTED: 


oe which lies close to our hands? Let us amply 
ask our own hearts, and they will tell us what they 
most deeply need—what they most yearningly crave. 


Nor is the use of any formulated theology neces- : 


sary in order toshow the manifold and full adaptation 
of Christianity to meet and satisfy all the heart’s pro- 
foundest needs. This adaptation lies patent upon the 
very surface of- the New Testament ; it comes home 
to the sense and feeling of the least theological of 
believers ; and it is best. and most humanly as well 
as most divinely expressed in the words, so full of 


grace and truth, of the Bible itself. It is, besides, ° 


the constant and most useful work of the pulpit to 
expound this adaptation, and to apply it practically 
in detail. It is the less necessary or desirable, there- 


fore, that I should offer any doctrinal exposition of 


the subject on the present occasion,—such as might 
recall to your thoughts the manner of pulpit treat- 
ment. My proper business now and here is neither 
theological exposition nor homiletical appeal, but 
evidential statement—an argumentative treatment of 
the subject, in defence and confirmation of the Chris- 
tian faith. 


I. Let me begin by laying down this first propo- 


sition—That if Christianity can be shown to be per-. 


fectly adapted to all the deeper needs of the human 
heart, it follows that, as a practical religion, it is abso- 
lutely perfect. 

184 


ee 
iD et mag 


LUN RS) even 


SS Te eee me 
ee PAE ene a ba 


Ate a 


POTS See Poe ey Peay ae Ng 


TO THE DEEPER WANTS OF THE HUMAN HEART. 


“ All the deeper needs of the human heart” are its 
moral and religious needs. The deepest thing in our 
nature is Conscience—ze., the sense of righteousness 
as the law of human life, and the sense of God as the | 
righteous Ordainer, Upholder, and Vindicator of that 
law of righteousness ; and the deepest relation of the 
human heart is its relation to God as the Author of 
our being, and the ultimate Ground upon which it 
rests. Among our profoundest needs, therefore, must 
be those which are connected with the conscience and 
this fundamental relation of our nature—our needs 
towards God and the law of Righteousness—the deep- 
going and far-reaching wants which crave that our 
relations to Him, which have been unsettled, deranged, 
and put out of harmony by the entrance of sin into 
our being and life, should be re-settled, re-adjusted, 
re-harmonized. 

Distinguishing between religious needs which are felt 
and realized by all men, and others which come to be 
felt only after deep reflection upon human nature, and 
are never realized by more than a few of the finer and 
more deep-insighted spirits of the race—such, e¢., as 
our need of an incarnation of the invisible God for 
all the purposes of fervent love to Him and intimate 
union and communion with Him, heart to heart and 
spirit to spirit; and confining ourselves at present 
exclusively to the former class of wants, let us, first of 
all, glance at the deepest needs of conscience. 

The conscience is an inner law of righteousness for 

185 


LHE EVIDENCE PO °CHRISTTANITY. AS ADAETED 


man—a law written on his heart—in virtue of which, 
even without any accession of revealed law, he is, in 
so far as he obeys it, a law unto himself. But this 
natural indwelling light of law is very far indeed from 
conveying to us a full and adequate knowledge of 
righteousness, either as it is in God or as it ought to be 
in man. This law written on the heart is dimly written, 
at best ; the writing has become blurred and blotted, 
and in part illegible. This earliest revelation of right- 
eousness is now utterly inadequate to express to us 
the whole will of God and the whole duty of man. 
The deepest need of conscience, therefore, is the reve- 
lation of a law of righteousness higher, more perfect, 
-and more authoritative than its own. The earnest 
craving and cry of the heart, when it comes to the 
right feeling of its own want in this respect, is, ““Shew 
me Z/y ways, O Lord; teach me Thy paths. O send 
out Thy light and Thy truth: let them teach me and 
lead me.” 

Another profound need of the conscience in all 
hearts is the need of peace with God. It is deeply 
possessed and pervaded by the sense of sin and guilt 
before God ; this ever-bleeding wound, this ever-fes- 
tering sore, has need to be healed; and nothing can 
heal it but the experienced mercy and the gracious 
forgiveness of Him who is the Lord of conscience. 
Is the pardon of sin possible with the God of right- 
eousness? And if so, must not a righteous God 


pardon it in a righteous way—by a channel and 
186 . 


Prue Seon ee Bi See pt gk 5. 
igi ce th pcishae td al ei ti ie A Bl ie tee al ulna « 


i 
ree ey eee SP om 


ronan sey 


a ep eee ae 


Te. Tee 8 
ge OA Ne 


TO THE DEEPER WANTS OF THE HUMAN HEART. 


under conditions which shall conserve the unchange- 
able demands of righteousness, as righteousness dwells. 
in the All-Holy and All-Just One? If our own 
hearts condemn us, God, we are sensible, is greater _ 
than our hearts, and knoweth all things; and He, the 
Holy One, must much more condemn us than we 
condemn ourselves. How, then, is His condemnation 
to be turned away? How is God’s peace to be ob- 
tained ? - Such are the needs and the problems of the 
sin-stricken conscience: “ Wherewithal shall I come 
before the Lord, and bow myself before the most 
high God? Shall I come before Him with burnt- 
offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord 
be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten 
thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn 
for my transgression—the fruit of my body for the 
sin of my soul?” 


‘‘ Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, 
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, 
Raze out the written troubles of the brain, 
And with some sweet, oblivious antidote, 
Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff 
Which weighs upon the heart ?” 


Another of the deepest needs of the human heart is 

a full and adequate object of love, surpassing in 

ideal excellence and glory any which is to be found 

in this imperfect world. The heart means not only 

conscience, but love ; and if conscience is its deepest 
187 


THE EVIDENCE TO CHRISTIANITY AS ADAPTED 


meaning, love is a meaning of it which is inferior in 
depth only to conscience. And what is love’s need, 
but that it should have right objects to love and be 


loved by,—good, better, best—high, higher, highest,— ee 


the best and the highest, most of all? But in this 
world, though our love may find the good and the 
better to love, the high and the higher, it fails to find 
the best and the highest. It has its own ideals of 
best and highest, but finds it impossible to realize 
them in all that the world contains of good and fair 
and noble; and this failure means disappointment— 
an aching sense that “all is vanity and vexation of 
spirit.” Can these ideals of the heart,—ideal love to 
be loved and rested in with entire assurance and 
complacency—ideal good and happiness to be pos- 


sessed, with a sense of having found the true riches at | 


last—a heavenly treasure, even on earth, that fadeth 
not—an inheritance of blessing, even in time, that 
fadeth not away,—can these heart-ideals never and 
nowhere be realized ? or are they not all to be realized 
in the objects of religious faith, and in the sphere of 
religious life and experience? “O that I had wings 
like a dove,” sighed out the Psalmist, “that I might 
fly away and be at rest! My soul thirsteth for God, 
the living God! O God, Thou art my God; early 
will I seek Thee, in this dry and thirsty land where 

no water is,” 
I shall only specify one more deep need of the 
human heart, in the sphere of moral and religious life. 
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TO THE DEEPER WANTS OF THE HUMAN HEART. 


Such a life is a life of high and arduous duty. It calls 
incessantly for effort and conflict, for self-denial and 
self-sacrifice in the service both of God and man ; and 
all this demands a large expenditure of moral force _ 
and energy. But one of the most conspicuous — 
characteristics of the heart of man is its feebleness in 
the undertaking, and still more in the persistent doing, 
of such high service and work. A deep reader and 
interpreter of human nature—St. Paul—describes men 
in one place as at once acbevers and aceBeus, without 
strength and without godliness: without strength to 
live a godly life; and without a hold on God to ob- 
tain the needed strength. 

Such, then, is the fourfold deepest need of the 
human heart : God’s light, to lead us into a truer and 
more assured conception both of righteousness and 
_ sin—God’s peace and reconciliation, to restore us to 
right relations to Himself and to His will—God’s 
love, to dower the heart with plenary joy and hope, 
and a sense of overflowing fulness and sufficiency— 
and God’s strength passing into our weakness, to 
fortify us in duty, to uphold us in conflict with evil, 
and to assure us final victory in the battle of a good 
and godly life. A religion which can adapt itself to 
all these moral and spiritual needs of the heart—in the 
sense of recognising them, meeting them, supplying 
them all to the full, and leaving nothing wanting to 
constitute itself the light and the peace and the joy 
and the strength and the hope of all human existence 

189 


\ 


THE EVIDENCE TQ CHRISTIANITY AS ADAPTED 


in life and in death,—such a religion, it is plain, must 
as a practical religion be absolutely perfect. 


II. Our second proposition is that Christianity can 
be shown to have a perfect adaptation to these and 
all other needs of our moral and religious nature and 
condition. 

Let me observe that the earliest and still the best- 
loved name of Christianity—the Gospel of Jesus Christ 
—was significant of this its intensely practical charac- 
ter. It was “good news” for the world—something new 
and unheard of before for the world’s good—to meet 
its wants, to heal its wounds, to cure its evils, to fill 
it with the surprise of a new joy. It was first pub-_ 
lished as the Gospel of the Kingdom of God—of the 
Kingdom of Heaven. The God of heaven was again 
to dwell among men, and to reign in them and over 
them with such a kingly fulness of blessing and 
power, that the broken intercourse of earth and heaven 
would be felt to be restored, and man’s life on earth 


enriched and blessed with all spiritual blessings in _ 1 


heavenly places in Christ. 

This gospel was characterized by St. Paul as “the 
glorious gospel of the blessed God”—Himself ever 
blessed—and given by Him to bless mankind with a 
baptism of His own blessedness. And does not this 
appear with a glorious fulness in the very names and 
titles which are everywhere given to the God of the- 
gospel in the New Testament ? What revelations do 

190 


TO THE DEEPER WANTS OF THE HUMAN HEART. 


these names and titles publish to the world of His 
character, dispositions, and relations to mankind? 
“Our Father in Heaven” ; “the Father of mercies, and 
the God of all comfort” ; “the Father of lights, from. 
whom cometh down every good and perfect gift”; “the 
God of peace”; “the God of hope”; “the God of all 
grace”—‘“able to do exceeding abundantly above all 
that we ask or think ’”—“able to make us perfect in 
every good work to do His will, and working in us 
that which is well-pleasing in His sight.” What trea- 
sures for the human heart and life, what precious pearls 
of new peace, new hope, new trust, new joy in God, 
lie embedded in all these gracious names and ‘self- 
revelations of the God with whom we have to do! It 
is the same with the numerous names and titles and 
styles of the Lord Jesus Christ, which are scattered 
‘broadcast, like diamonds, over the whole surface of the 
New Testament : not one of them an empty name, but 
every one expressive of some part of His fulness of 
practical grace and blessing; not one of them a barren 
style or title, but all of them suggestive of His rich and 
inexhaustible fruitfulness of use and benefit to the 
' moral and spiritual life of mankind. His birth-name 
-— Fesus—singled Him out from all men as the Saviour 
of the world—of all its benefactors the greatest and 
the best. His baptismal name-—“ The Lamb of God, 
that taketh away the sin of the world”—sealed Him 
for the great oblation and sacrifice of the cross, and 
announced Him as the world’s Propitiation and Peace 
191 


THE EVIDENCE TO CHRISTIANITY AS ADAPTED 


—the world’s Atoner and Atonement both in one. And 
what a profound significance of full adaptation to all 
the spiritual needs of the race was conveyed in the 
marvellous threefold title which He assumed when, 
calmly, and in complete self-knowledge and self- 
possession, He said to His disciples in the upper 
chamber, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life ; 
no man cometh to the Father but by me.” 

But there is one favourite phrase of His apostles, 
which more than any other expresses the near relation 
of His Divine abundance to our human want. They _ 
love to speak of the /wness of Christ, and of our ful- 
ness or completeness in Him. St. John exclaims, with 
admiration, “The Word was made fiesh, and dwelt 

“among us, full of grace and truth, and out of His ful- 
ness have we all received, even grace for grace.” And 
the oft-recurring witness of St. Paul is the same: 
“Tt pleased the Father that in Him all fulness should 
dwell. . . And having made peace by the blood of His 
cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself. . . 
And ye are complete—filled full in Him who is the head 
of all principality and power.’ Could any language | 
more perfectly express the practical sufficiency of 
Christ and Christianity for all the moral and religious 
needs of the human heart and life ?—for giving us all 
the light we need, and all the nearness to God, and all 
the interest in the love of God, and all the strength in 
God? Cannot every true Christian say of what he 
finds laid to his hand in Christ and Christianity, “1 

192 


- 


20 THE DEEPER WANTS OF THE HUMAN HEART. 


have all things, and abound; I am full; my God 
supplies all my need, according to His riches by 
Christ Jesus” ?—“ Christ is made unto me of God 
wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and te- 
-demption”? | 
No wonder St. Paul, having such a gospel to bring 

to Rome, could say in anticipation of his bringing it, 
“T am sure that, when I come unto you, I shall come 
in the fulness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ ”! 
—and no wonder that, in the assurance of carrying to 
the world’s metropolis such a pleroma of moral and 
spiritual blessing, he exclaimed, “I am ready to 
preach the gospel to you that are in Rome also; I 
am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ; it is the 
power of God unto salvation to every one that be- — 
lieveth—to the Jew first, and also to the Greek”! And 
every Christian man re-echoes the glowing language 
of St. Paul. “The gospel has been the power of God 
to save me. I ama new man in Christ. Old things 
- have passed away from me; all things have become 
new in me. Once in darkness, I am now light in 
Christ. Once an alien from God, I am now near to 
Him by the reconciliation and atonement of Christ’s 
cross—the child and the heir of His everlasting love. 
Once in utter impotency for good, I am now strong 
in the strength and power of the Holy Ghost, shed 
on me abundantly through Jesus Christ my Saviour.” 
. Here then we have thevery perfection and optimisi 
of a practical religion—to which absolutely nothing of 

193 O 


THE EVIDENCE TO CHRISTIANITY AS ADAPTED 


Nap cia Mesa ct Pena ne on, DEB as eles ee NED, UA YARN TT SA Se 


all we need is wanting, and to which it is impossible 
even in imagination to add anything which our moral 
and spiritual necessities require. It is simply in this 
practical character that we are at present examining 
Christianity and putting it to the proof; and from this 
examination it comes forth undeniably the most per- 
fect religion that can be conceived. We do not claim 
for it to be equally perfect in an intellectual or specu- 
lative point of view. We do not claim for it to have 
given us a doctrine of God and His world-government 
‘which is plenary enough to have cleared up all difh- 
culties and put an end to all mysteries. Christianity 


itself puts forward no such claim in its own sacred * 


documents. “Here,” says her greatest apostle, “we 
know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when 
that which is perfect is come, then that which is in 
part shall be done away. For now we see through a 


glass darkly, but then face to face.” What can be- 
more frank. and candid? Dogmatically taken, the — 


gospel of Jesus Christ is not perfect for the purposes 
of speculative knowledge,—although, even in this 
aspect of doctrine, it is perfect for all the purposes of 
practice and life. . Christ is the Truth to us co-exten- 
sively with His being to us the Way and the Life. 
Absolutely nothing is wanting in Him as the Truth, 
which is needful to our having the full, and even the 
abounding use and benefit of Him as our Way into 
the Father’s love, and our Life in the Father's fellow- 
ship, obedience, and service. 

194 


LO THE DEEPER WANTS OF THE HUMAN HEART. 


ITT. Advancing now to the question of the evidential 
value and force of this optimism of Christianity as a 
practical religion, my third proposition is, that there 
is no antecedent incredibility or even improbability 
that a religion of such a character should have been 
the gift of God to the human race. 

Of course I can only argue such a question upon 
the principles of Theism—upon the assumption of 
God’s Being and Goodness, as the Creator and 
Governor of the world. I cannot argue it with the 
atheist, who denies a God, or (which virtually comes 
to the same thing) denies that there is any adequate 
proof of His existence. And as little can I argue it 
with the pantheist, who denies God’s Personality, 
-and therein virtually denies that God stands in any 
such relation to man as that of a Giver of gifts. 
When the Christian advocate has to deal with atheism 
and pantheism, he must go much further back in the 
direction of first principles, in order to find any common 
ground upon which he may plant his leverage. But 
as yet the number of atheists and pantheists among 
our countrymen is not nearly equal to the number 
of our Deists, although it is no doubt increasing ; 
and it is sometimes necessary to leave out “of view 
the smaller class of unbelievers, in order to address 
ourselves to the more numerous class, _ 

To proceed, then, with my argument on this under- 
standing, I assume, in common with every Theist, that 
God not only is, but that He is the Father of lights, 

195 


THE EVIDENCE TO CHRISTIANITY AS ADAPTED 


from. whom cometh down every good and perfect 


gift. This conception of Him is one which is felt by © 


every God-believing mind to be eminently worthy. of 
‘Him. If God were not the Father of lights, but the 
opposite; if He were not the Giver of all good and 
perfect gifts, but the reverse; such a Being could 
only be a Demon to us—he could not be a God. 
Well, then! is there anything antecedently incredible 
in the idea that such a God as we believe in—such 
a Father of lights, such a Giver of good and perfect 
gifts—should have been Himself the Giver of such a 
Light and of such a perfect Gift as we have seen 
Christ and Christianity to be? A religion perfectly 
adapted to all the needs of man’s heart and life,— 
a perfect law of life, and a perfect dower of life, 
—would such a gift of God have been less worthy 
of Him to give than any of the other gifts which 
He has already bestowed upon us? ‘There is a 
_ graduation in the values of His natural gifts: “Is 
not the life more than meat, and the body than 
raiment ?”—and if we can conceive of gifts of God 
that would exceed in value all bodily endowments 
and supplies, is there anything incredible, or‘ incon- 
sistent with our worthiest conceptions of Him, in the 
idea that the gifts of Jesus Christ to the world might 
very well be the gifts of the Father of Lights Him- 
self? But we may well go further than this, and ask, 
Is there anything even improbable in the idea that 


such a religion as we have seen the gospel of Jesus: 


196 


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SO ee as Bay DEEPER WANTS OF THE HUMAN HEART. 


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Christ to be should be the gift of God to us? We 
cannot fora moment think so, if only we are more 
in earnest in our faith in the Fatherhood of God than 
_the old heathen were, who called Olympian Jove the 
Father of men as well as of gods—Father Zeus— 
-and who spoke of themselves correspondingly as 
God’s offspring. How deeply in earnest is Christ 
with this faith in the Heavenly Father! and how 
admirably, how irresistibly does He argue from it! 
“If ye who are evil know how to give good gifts 
unto your children, how much more will your Father 
who is in heaven give good:things to them that ask 
Him?” How infinitely much is included in that “ hoz 
much more,’ 1 need not say; I leave it to yourselves 
to say it in your hearts. He reasons from the past 
and present to the future, when He stands upon the 
strong ground of the Heavenly Father’s love; and 
. He reasons to the future of God’s gifts as confidently 
in reference to moral and religious gifts as in refer- 
ence to the gifts of food and raiment. He varies His’ 
words so as to extend His reasoning to both sets 
of gifts alike. In one place the wording is, “How 
much more will He give ‘good things’ ?”—a phrase of 
blessed fulness including all that is good for body 
and soul. In another parallel place the wording is, 
“How much more will He give the Holy Spirit to 
those who ask Him ?”—a phrase specially applicable to 
the gift of Christ’s religion itself. His reasoning, which 
is of admirable force and beauty, coming home to 
197 


fi a Oar EVIDENCE TO CHRISTIANITY AS ADAPTED * 


every heart, teaches us how divinely much of. good 
was always to be expected from the Heavenly 
Father, the Father of lights; how much was to be 
expected of coming blessing at the very moment 
when He so deeply interpreted and so touchingly 
uttered the Father’s inmost heart and purpose. “His 
reasoning made it more than probable—it made it 
morally certain—that when the Father's own time 
came, which He had reserved in His own power, He 
who had already given to His human family so much 
of the good and the better, would go on to give them 
the best of all—His Crowning Gift—the Gift of the 
Holy Spirit Himself, the Lord and Giver of the 
Divine life, the life everlasting. 

But this probability, for the purposes of Christian 
evidence, requires, of course, to be turned into positive 
proof; and this proof—for the ends of intellectual, or 
purely logical conviction—-may be found in certain 
considerations external to the intrinsic characteristics 
of the religion itself, when brought into connection 
with these characteristics. 


IV. That it is impossible to give any adequate 


explanation of the origin of- Christianity upon mere » 


natural principles, or to include it, along with all other 
phenomena of the world’s history, in the succession 
and concatenation of natural cause and effect. 
Authentic Christianity lies before you in its own 
standard documents of the New Testament canon ; 
198 


-° -T0O THE DEEPER WANTS OF THE HUMAN HEART. 


and by an inspection of these, in comparison with | 
other ancient literature, you can judge for yourselves 
whether it is a religion derived from other sources, or 
one of a thoroughly original and independent charac- 
ter, That the New Testament derives much matter 
from the Old, is of course a patent fact; but this fact 
has no relevancy to the present question, because the 
two Testaments together make up one and the same 
religion—they are both included in the Christian 
Scriptures. 

But does the New Testament borrow anything 
either from the Oriental religions and theosophies, 
or from the philosophical-schools of Greece and Alex- 
andria? It could not have failed to do so if it had 
-hada purely natural origin; for these were the only 
available sources of the age from which borrowed 
religious thought could be obtained. But neither in 
. matter nor in form is the presence of any of the 
elements of these religions or philosophies to. be de- 
tected in the writings of the evangelists and apostles. 
The entire substance and flavour of the New Testa- 
ment is intensely different; and the whole of the 
most characteristic teaching of Christ and the apostles 
was so far from being in the spirit and manner of 
these older systems of thought, that we have the 
highest contemporary authority for maintaining that 
it was intensely offensive to their adherents. “We 
preach Christ crucified,” says St. Paul; “to the Jews 
a .stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness.” 

199 


sie THE EVIDENCE TO CHRISTIANITY AS ADAPTED 


if Christianity had bee of the world, the world sone 
have loved its own. It was because it was not of the 
world—either the Oriental, or Hellenic, or Judaic— 
that the world hated it. 

You have not only Christianity before you in the 
New Testament, but you have the Christ Himself, in 
all the traits of His personal character, and in the 
whole train and succession of His personal history. 

Was there ever a teacher, was there ever a character | 
in the world less derived from others, less dependent 
upon others, less given to borrowing from others, less 
needing to borrow from others, than He? If there 
is anywhere in all history an original religious Genius, 
and a Character standing alone and isolated in the 
world, in solitary greatness, is it not He? As much 
as this is now universally acknowledged by infidels 
themselves, Even Mr. Mill acknowledges, in his post- 
humous “Essays on Religion,” that “the Prophet of 
Nazareth has His place in the very first rank of the 
men of sublime genius of whom our species can boast.” 
How, then, are we to account, on natural principles, for 
an originality of religious teaching and life, which is 
without a parallel in universal history? Never man 
spake of God and men like this Man; never man 
loved God and men like this Man; never man lived 
for God and men like this Man. How could all this 
come to pass in this one historical Personage, unless 
there had been something more than natural in His 


- Person and conditions ?—unless He had been as unlike 
200: 


20 THE DEEPER WANTS OF THE: HUMANS HEART, 


all other human beings in some of His conditions and 
relations as He was unlike them in godly life and 
godly speech? And what was the perplexed and 
questioning wonder which He awakened in so many of 
those who were best acquainted with all the circum- 
stances and surroundings of His life in Nazareth, but 
a dim and unexpressed surmise that there was some- 
thing more than human about Him—something super- 
natural, miraculous, Divine? And can it ever be 
proved that that surmise was not a just one? Ina 
case where it is found impossible to account for the 
phenomenon before us in a natural way, what remains, 
in reason and in common sense, but to conclude that 
the phenomenon was more than natural ? to see in it 
the finger of God—a direct manifestation of the Divine 
in the human? 

But, better than anything said about Him by other 
men, let us hear what He said about Himself. 


V. Our fifth proposition is, that we have the 
plainest and fullest assurances from the lips of Christ | 
Himself, of the Divine source and authority of His 
teaching,—that His teaching was not only true 
teaching, but the Truth of God—God-given, and 
God-sealed. 

I limit myself to a single instance of this self- 
witness of Christ. You remember that when Jesus 
on one occasion went up into the Temple and taught, 


the Jews marvelled, as well they might—saying, “How 
201 


THE EVIDENCE. ‘TO CHRISTIANITY AS ADAPTED 


knoweth this man letters, having never learned ?” 

Jesus answered them and said, “ My doctrine is not 
mine, but his that sent me. If any man is willing to 
do his will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it 
is of God or whether I speak of myself. He that 
speaketh of himself, seeketh his own glory; but he 
that seeketh his glory that sent him, the same is true, 
and no unrighteousness isin him. JI am not come of 
myself, but he that sent me is true, whom ye know 
not; but I know him, for I am from him, and he hath 
sent me.” What claim, I ask, to a Divine commission 
could have been more outspoken? What challenge of 
a Divine source and authority for His teaching could 
have been more explicit? The alternative is unavoid- 
able: either we must receive His testimony to this 
effect, or else allege that He was either deceived 
Himself, or a deceiver of others. And is either of 
these allegations by any possibility tenable, when 
we look at them in the light of that perfection or 
optimism which we have discerned in the religion 
which He gave to the world ? 

The allegation that He was Himself deceived in 
regard to His Divine mission and authority, is one ; 
that affects very deeply His intellectual power and 
competency, and introduces into the question of His 
mental endowment and action and production an ele- 
ment of insoluble difficulty, and, indeed, of the most» 
hopeless contrariety or contradiction. His religion, as 


we have seen, is full of the highest and most worthy 
202 


70 THE DEEPER WANTS OF THE HUMAN HEART. 


conceptions of the Divine nature and attributes ; and 
no less so ofthe deepest insight into the moral consti-. 
tution and capacities and needs of humanity. His 
knowledge both of God and man, and of their mutual _ 
moral relations, was immensely greater than that of 
any other religious teacher that ever appeared upon 
earth ; and His teaching on these highest and deepest 
subjects of human thought was always of that in- 
tensely Juminous kind which is self-evidencing and self- 
commending—seen by its own light, and verified by 
its own self-witness. And yet we are asked to believe 
that He was deceived with regard to the source of this 
very teaching, and with regard to His own standing 
in relation to it; He was in error in thinking that it 
had any higher source than His own mind; He was 
the poor victim of self-delusion in fancying that He 
was the Sent of God—or the Son of God, or even the 
Son of Man, in any other sense than all other men 
are sons of men or sons of God. If so, what are we 
to think of such a combination of wisdom and folly— 
of extraordinary strength and as extraordinary weak- 
ness—of unexampled insight into the truth both of 
God and man, and as unexampled blindness as to 
the truth concerning Himself? The best of.all kinds 
of wisdom, it has always been thought, and the best 
of all tests of a man’s wisdom, is his knowledge of 
himself; but here is a Christ, the Light of the world, 
who said, and was entitled to say, “ He that followeth 
me. shall not walk in darkness but shall have the 
203 


THE EVIDENCE TO CHRISTIANITY AS ADAPTED 


light of life”—who knew nothing of His real Self, and 
the source of His own wisdom—who took Himself 
for infinitely more than He really was—who con- 
ceived Himself to be the Son and the Sent of God, 4 
when He was no more than a child of the dust, like — : : 
other men! Is this a possible combination? Can- 
“we conceive of such a combination of opposites—of 4 
irreconcileables—in the same mind, and that a sane 
mind? Does not such a-conception amount to a a 
reductio.ad absurdum ? 7 = 
Or is the alternative allegation a whit more tenable, 
—that, without being deceived Himself, He was a de- 
ceiver of others? The alternative in this case is of a 
moral kind, and introduces an element of incoherence 
and contradiction into Christ’s moral and _ religious : 
consciousness which is absolutely insoluble, or rather, e 
which amounts to a moral and spiritual impossibility. , 
Take this allegation, as before, in connection with the 
optimism of His religion as a law of righteousness for 
the government of human life, and as an institute of 
salvation for a sinful race from the guilt and power 


and defilement of sin. His very name denotes “the 
Saviour from sin”; His very life-blood was shed to 
cleanse the world from sin; His gospel was sent 
forth to bless the world by turning men away, every- 
where, from their iniquities: and yet the allegation 
is that Christ Himself was a deceiver of the people, 4 
a self-conscious misleader, the greatest and most ~- 3 
gigantic Impostor that ever breathed. For it must 
204 


TO THE DEEPER WANTS OF THE HUMAN HEART. 


needs come to this, if we admit the idea of imposture 
at all—remembering the infinite magnitude of His 
personal claims and self-assertions. What an im- 
possible combination of attributes in the same cha- | 
racter, in the same historical Personality, have we 
here!. What equal antagonism in the same mind to 
sin and to goodness ! What unexampled and pro- 
digious intensity of devotion, both to holiness in the 
case of others, and to wickedness and falsehood in His 
own case! What an inconceivable and incredible 
fighting against the power of sin in the world by the 
sinful weapons of deceit and deliberate imposture in 
Himself! What a preposterous and impossible zeal, 
to be the Regenerator of the world of men by means 
of a course of action and influence steeped in the 
deepest dies of deception and mendacity! Are we 
not here a second time in presence of a monstrosity 
so enormous as to be an indubitable nullity—a plain 
impossibility? Have we not here again a reductio 
ad absurdum twice told? Away, then, with all such 
historical incredibilities for ever! Let us embrace all 
the miracles of Christ’s Person and history, rather 
than admit to our minds such stark and degrading 
monstrosities as these. The credulity of believing 
such absurdities is dishonouring both to the under- | 
standing and the heart. “Christ, the Miracle of 
history,” is a holy miracle, a miracle of goodness, a 
miracle both of light and love; and it is ennobling 
to the reason and the heart of men to believe in Him, 
205 


THE EVIDENCE TO. CHRISTIANITY AS ADAPTED | 
BAR IC TRECs SE eat RS nO enn a 
But if men will not accept a miraculous Christ, there 
is nothing left to them but to believe in a historical 
monstrosity—a Jusus nature, a misbirth of time, the 
worst and most incredible ever known in the annals 
‘of the world. 

Such is the intellectual or logical argument which 
I think may be soundly made use of to prove the 
Divine truth of Christianity from its adaptation to 
all the deepest needs of the human heart. But I 
must not omit, at the close of this argument addressed 
to the understanding, to refer briefly to another way, 
quite different from this, in which that adaptation often 
comes home to the consciences and religious feelings 
of men with a force of impression and conviction which 
they are unable to resist, and which they feel con- 
strained to ascribe equally to the Divine truth of the. 
-message and to a Divine power accompanying and 
sealing it upon their hearts. This is what Dr. Chalmers 
calls “The Experimental Evidence of Christianity,” or 
the evidence resulting from the experience of its moral 
and religious power in the soul. It turns upon the | 
same adaptations of Christianity to the human heart 
of which I have been all along discoursing ; but upon 
these adaptations as felt and experienced by the 
heart, rather than as seen and appreciated by the 
intellect ;—as realized under the direct home-thrusts | 
which the Gospel aims at the sinner’s conscience, 
urging him to cry out, “What must I do to be saved ? 
O wretched man that I am!—who shall deliver me 

206 


TO THE DEEPER WANTS OF THE HUMAN HEART. 


from this body of sin and death?” and opening his 
heart to receive “the consolation of Christ,’ and the 
peace-bringing message of the Prince of Peace. Of 
the adaptations of the gospel, first to search and 
rouse the souls of ‘men, and next to settle them in 
assured peace and hope upon the only solid founda- 
tion, the searts of men, it is manifest, are able to 
arrive at a much more vivid and effective conviction 
than their understandings. To feel a truth is much 
more than to see a truth. To know a truth by 
experience, in the very depths of the soul, is vastly 
more than to learn it by the hearing of the ear, or to 
admit it as an idea toa place in the system of our 
thoughts. To have taken a medicine into the body, 
and to have experienced a cure thereby, gives one a 
very different sort of assurance of its healing power 
than the information of the physician or another 
patient. Hence the deep conviction of the Divine 
power and truth of Christianity which springs up 
immediately in the minds of men, when they find 
themselves actually stirred and wakened up to new- 
ness of life under its teaching and appeals. Nothing 
ever so stirred them before; nothing ever: so quick- 
ened and inspired them to newness of life before: 
and all this stirring, and quickening, and newness 
of life, their consciences assure them to.be good and 
holy—all undoubtedly agreeable to God’s will, and all 
unquestionably proceeding from God’s own truth and 
power. 


207 


THE EVIDENCE TO CHRISTIANITY AS ADAPTED 


No man, of course, is able to sympathise with such 


experiences of the healing power of the gospel, — 


“unless he has had such experiences himself. This 
kind of evidence, therefore, can only have convincing 


effect upon those who have passed through such © 


moral and spiritual experience. But even to others 
it should not go quite for nothing. The fact is 
surely a suggestive one, that multitudes of men 
have passed, and are passing in our own day, 
and, so to speak, before our own eyes, through this 
very process of spiritual and moral change, under 
the earnest and simple preaching of the gospel- 
message. The fact is an unchallengeable one, 
and must have its explanation. The explanation 
which all true converts and true Christians them- 


selves give of it, is at least an adequate one to 


account for the facts; and no other explanation has 
ever been found of which as much can be said. How 
powerfully is the nature and relevancy of this ex- 
perimental evidence of Christianity set forth in the 
following passages of Vinet’s “‘ Discourses” ! 

What a striking picture does he give us of the way 
in which a man who begins, like many others, by 
being a votary of proud reason, is brought to acqui- 
esce with joy in the teaching of Christ, and so to 
enter into God’s rest and peace !— 


‘What, then, does our Heavenly Father do, when He desires 


to save such a soul? He leaves it for. a time to struggle with ~ 


its speculations, and to vex itself with their impotence. When 
208 


Sie Rare mG 
pi Res nl cad abt Sale 


LO° THE DEEPER ‘WANTS OF THE HUMAN. HEART. 
it is weary and despairing, when it has acknowledged that it is 
equally incapable of stifling or of satisfying its cravings for light, 
He takes advantage of its humiliation; He lays His hand upon 
that soul, exhausted by. its efforts, wounded by its falls,—and 
compels it to sue for quarter. Then it humbles itself, submits, 
groans ; it cries for succour ; it renounces the claim to know, 
and desires only to believe; it pretends not to comprehend, 
it only aspires to live. Then the heart commences its functions 
it-takes the place of reason ; anguished and craving, the heart 
is such as God would have it. It sues for grace, and lo ! there is 
grace ; it asks for aid, and aid comes ; it craves salvation, and 
salvation is given. On that heart confused and miserable is 
then bestowed—nay, lavished—all that was refused to reason 
proud and haughty. Its poverty enables it to conceive what its 
wealth kept it from knowing. It comprehends with ease, it 
accepts with ardour, the truths which it needs, and without which 
no human soul can enjoy peace or happiness. And thus is ful- 

filled the word of wisdom, ‘ Out of the heart proceed the springs 
of life.’ ; 

“Will ye come, proud’ spirits,” Vinet adds, addressing him- 
self-to the sceptics of our time, “and demand from such an one 
an account of his faith? Certainly he will not explain to’ you 
what is inexplicable: in this respect he will send you away 
poorly satisfied. But if he says to you—if he can say to you— 
“I dove, ought not such a response to satisfy you? If he can 
say, “I no longer belong to myself, nor to honour, nor to the 
world ; my meat is to do the -will of my Heavenly Father ; I 
aspire to eternal good ; I love in God all my brethren with a 
cordial affection ; I am content to live, I shall be happy to die; 
henceforth allis harmony within me; my energies and activi- 
ties, my destiny and desires, my affections and thoughts, are 
all in accordance ; the world, this life, and human things are 
not the mystery which torments me, nor the contradiction that 
causes me to despair; in a word, I am raised to newness of life.’ 
If he says—if he can say to you—all this, and his whole life 
corroborates his words, ah! then do not waste on him vain 
reasonings ; try not to refute him; he has truth, for he has life. 
. 209 P 


THE EVIDENCE TO CHRISTIANITY AS ADAPTED 


Does the person who enjoys sight need to be told there 
is light? Can one in good health be persuaded he is sick ? 
These are irrefragable verities, the proof of which is 2 himself 
—nay, more—of which he zs Azmse/f the living proof.” 


In another place, where he is treating of the 
certainty of Christian faith as one of its character- 
istics, he has the following remarkable passage :— 


“J do not speak of that array of external proofs which form 
the imposing bulwark of the Christian revelation—proofs - for 
which the sceptics of our day affect a contempt so little philo- 
sophical, and which scarcely one in a hundred gives himself 
the trouble to examine. I do not speak of them here [in the 


pulpit], for they are not equally within the reach of all the — 


faithful. But the Christian has a proof better still ; he has God 
present in the heart ; he feels every moment the influence of the 
Spirit of God in his soul. He loves,—therefore he has the 
truth: the proof is not of a nature to be communicated by 
words,—but neither can words take it away. You cannot 
prove to him that he does not love God; and if he loves 
God, will you dare to insist that he does not know Him? 
I ask, Can he who loves God be deceived? Is he not in the 
truth? And if Christianity alone gives him power to love God, 
is not Christianity exclusively the truth? Such is the certainty 
in which the faithful rejoice. I do not add that it is cherished 
and quickened by the Holy Spirit; I only speak of obvious 
facts—facts respecting which the unbelieving as well as the 
believing can satisfy themselves. And I limit myself to saying 
that the faith of the true Christian has for its peculiar cha- 
racteristic a certainty which elevates it above that of any other 
belief. 

‘Behold, ye men of the world, ye thinkers, ye great actors in 
the concerns of time ! behold the faith which I propose to your 
hearts empty and famishing for faith! Certainly it does not 
depend upon me to make you accept it by the picture which I 

210 


* he 


TO THE DEEPER WANTS OF THE HUMAN HEART. 
2 sel aE lS SIREN GSS LE i.e RAS ee OE RTD BOK AS Be 
have traced, nor upon you to become its votaries through this 
simple exposition. Arguments do not change man ; it is life which 
teaches life,—it is God who reveals God. But is what we have 
said without some attainable end and application? No,—if we 
have succeeded in making you understand at least the imperfec- 
tions of your own faith and the superiority of Christian faith 
with reference to life and action. As to the first point, it is, I 
believe, beyond contradiction. As to the second, my only object 
was to demonstrate that, like all other beliefs, the Christian 
religion renders homage to a want of the human soul, and— 
what no other belief has yet done—that it has satisfied this.want ; 
that it has an zwtensity, a generality of application, an elevation 
of tendency, and; in fine, a certainty which no other possesses ; 
that in all these respects it presents a type of perfection which 
has never been realized in any human invention ; and thatif God 
Himself has given a faith to the world, it is impossible that He 
should have given a better in any respect. After this it would 
appear quite superfluous to inquire if the Christian religion is 
true. To us this proof is sufficient ; and we earnestly pray that 
it may strike others as it strikes us.” 


But what, let us now ask before we close, are the 
latest replies which the class of men here addressed 
‘by the Swiss philosopher and divine have been giving 
to all such pleadings and appeals of the Christian 
advocate? What are the substitutes which they have 
been lately offering to us in room of this perfect 
practical religion of Jesus Christ ? 

We have here a choice of substitutes ; for the world’s 
philosophers and free-thinkers, it is worth while to note, 
are far from being agreed among themselves as to what 
should take the place of Christianity—although of one 
mind in thinking the over-hasty thought that Chris- 


tianity has waxed old and is ready to vanish away. 
211 


THE EVIDENCE TO CHRISTIANITY AS ADAPTED 


First, we have the substitute proposed by Strauss 
in his last work—“ The Old Faith and the New.” By 
this new faith he means that the world should have 
no religious faith at all—no God as distinct from the 
Universe, and no heaven but the visible skies. Beginning 
his career as a theologian and a preacher, he ended 
by saying to Science and Poetry and Music, Ye are 
my gods. He believed in no higher divinities ; he 
wished for himself and for mankind no higher worship. 


He was at the very opposite pole of thought and senti-- 


ment to Jesus Christ—to whom God was all in all, but 
to Strauss nothing. But to say this is the same thing 


-as to say that he was at the very opposite pole of © 


thought and feeling to human nature itself. His 
philosophy is an absolute negation of all the re- 
ligious feelings and needs of the soul. It is an 
amputation of our nature, a dismemberment of our 
life—not a provision for it; a grim scoffing and 
mockage at its moral and religious wants—not an 
adaptation to them. 


Next we have Comte’s substitute for Christianity— _ 
vig., the worship of Humanity. Heagrees with Strauss — 


in-setting aside the worship of Deity, but differs from 
him in thinking that men must have a worship of 
some religious kind; and he proposes to them to 
introduce the worship of their own race, conceived of 
as a whole—past, present, and future—and as repre- 
sented by all its greatest geniuses and benefactors of 


every age and nation. He set an example of this 
212 


70 THE DEEPER WANTS OF THE HUMAN HEART. ° 


strange worship in his own person: he instituted what 
he called a Church and a ritual and a hierarchy ; and 
he published a Church calendar, filled with the names 
and commemoration-days of philosophers, poets, 
artists, and patriots, instead of the prophets and 
apostles of the Bible and the canonized saints of 
Rome. I cannot find any information to show that 
this new worship and Church have made any way in 
the world; and no wonder! If the philosophy of 
Strauss is a cynical repudiation of the religious 
element of our nature, this philosophy of Comte is 
as cynical a caricature of it: as though the religion 
proper to our instincts could ever mean anything but 
the worship of God, however erroneously conceived of 
God might be,—as though it could ever mean the 
worship of Humanity ‘itself as distinct from God, as 
a substitute for God, as a rival and competitor with 
God! And what needs of the human heart could such 
a worship of Humanity ever satisfy? At bottom it 
is nothing but the worship of self—human beings 
worshipping their own nature and kind—implying and 
signifying that Humanity is a sufficient object to meet 
and supply the moral and spiritual wants and aspira- 
tions of all its units. But is it possible, taking human 
nature as it is, with all its moral needs and ideals 
and cravings, that men and women at large could ever 
be taught or induced to think and feel in this manner 
of Comte? How miserable would be the issue, if 
ever they could be taught to do so! It would, 
213 : 


THE EVIDENCE TO CHRISTIANITV AS ADAPTED 


in effect, dehumanize their humanity. For surely 
the truest, noblest, and most characteristic thing in 
human nature is its aspirations after what it cannot 
find in itself—its ideals of an excellence and glory of 
goodness and nobleness far surpassing its own, and 
which it can only adore and in measure imitate; but 
which, if it ceased to adore, it would cease to imitate; 
and, ceasing to imitate, would cease to confess its 
own inferiority, and to strive against its own descent 
to ever lower and lower levels of corruption and 
degeneracy. 

Mr. Mill also recommends to the world a religion of 
Humanity; but a religion without any ritual or worship 
—a religion of simple duty to mankind,—a devotion 
of the individual man to the interest and service of the 
human race. It is a new and paradoxical use of the 
‘term religion, thus to apply it to a system of morals 
which is professedly without God, and which is put 
forward as a substitute for all that is usually under- 
stood by religious faith and life. Nor has this “religion 
of humanity” any more chance than Comte’s “ worship 
of humanity” to find many disciples. For what 
adaptation to the religious instincts and needs of the 
human heart is there in a system which ignores all 
these instincts and needs by ignoring God the Object 
of them, and which virtually tells mankind that they 
have no need to trouble themselves about God at all, 
and their relations to Him, but would do better to give 
all their thoughts and care and exertions to the ser- 

214 


TO THE DEEPER WANTS OF THE HUMAN HEART. 


vice of their own race in its present and future genera- 
tions? Mr. Millis not a dogmatic atheist, like Strauss 
and Comte ; he pronounces, in one of his posthumous 
Essays, on the side of Theism, though with no great. 
decision of conviction; but his “religion of humanity” is 
conceived of in a practically atheistic spirit. It implies 
throughout that the fulness of God has nothing to do 
with the fulness of man and his life; that if men wish 
to attain to greater satisfaction in their lives, they are 
to seek for that not in any fresh light, or grace, or 
strength, or blessing which they can hope to obtain 
from on high, but only in what they may hope to 
confer of good, or benefit, or blessing upon their fellow- 
men. And what, moreover, is this but to teach men 
some part of their duty to one another, while severing, 
at the same moment, every bond and tie that connects 
the duty of man with the faith and the love and the 
loyal service of God?’ Such a teaching of the duties 
-of philanthropy cuts away philanthropy from all 
those living roots of religion in which it has always 
found its chief strength and support, and in separation 
from which all experience shows that it can never- 
have more than a feeble, precarious, and inefficacious 
life. This-is to demand fruits without roots. This is 
to disjoin and cut asunder the two great command- 
ments of that grand old Law of God which will doubt- 
less survive all these crude inventions of men: “Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,—and 
thy neighbour as thyself.” As though love to God 


aie 


THE EVIDENCE TO CHRISTIANITY AS ADAPTED 


did not mean also love to man; and as though love — : 


to man, of the best and most energetic and persistent 


type, did not mean also love to God,-—to separate 


which two loves is the same sort of folly as it would 
be to break the connexion of the working machinery 
of a factory with the steam-engine which supplies 


all the motive power, or to expect the limbs of the 


human body to continue their living action and move- 


ment when “the wheel has been broken” at the vital. 


cistern of the heart. 
The last substitute for Christianity fiesane forward 


by modern philosophy is that proposed by Professor 


Tyndall in his Belfast address. Conceding “the 
unquenchable claims of the religious and moral senti- 
ments of our nature,’—“ the immoveable’basis of the 
religious sentiment in the nature of man,’—all the 
religions of the world are to him “the forms of a Force 
capable of being guided to noble issues in the sphere 
of emotion, which is its proper, and elevated sphere.” 
All this sounds very hopeful at first ; but we soon 
discover that in it all~he does not mean to say a 
single word in favour of keeping: Christianity in the 
world, but only to prepare the way for a new religion 


of his own, which he recommends us to substitute in 


its room,—a religion of “the creative faculties of man” 
as distinguished from “his knowing faculties,’—a 


religion of emotion and imagierion, not a religion of - | 


fact and knowledge. 
First, he calls the Divine Object of all religion he 
216 


0 THE DEEPER WANTS OF THE HUMAN HEART. 


Mystery—the Insoluble Mystery—about whom, that 
is to say, nothing is known or knowable to the under- 
standing or the knowing faculties ; and then he goes 
on to speak of our forming conceptions of the Mystery . 
as best we may, and fashioning it to our thoughts in 
such wise as to be consistent with science, from age to 
age. But is there not a plain, practical contradiction 
of thought here? If the Mystery is wholly inscrutable 
and unknowable, where is the sense or use of forming 
conceptions about it? How is what is pronounced to 
be inconceivable or unthinkable to be conceived or 
thought of ? Can any labour of the mind be more 
fruitless and inept and foolish than such religious 
employment of it ? 

Again, Professor Tyndall relegates all such religious 
conceptions to the creative faculties of the mind as. 
distinguished from the ézowdng faculties ; and this he 
does quite consistently with his assertion that God is 
“the insoluble Mystery.” For an object not know- 
able is of course no proper object for the knowing 
faculties ; and if the human mind is still to occupy 
itself with such an object, it can only be with its 
non-knowing faculties—only with its creative facul- 
ties ; those which Shakespeare, who ap meee them 
in a perfection, describes as 

“giving to airy nothings 
A local habitation and a name.” 
What are these “airy nothings” of the poet’s? His 
conceptions, his fancies, his imaginations, which have 
217 


THE EVIDENCE -TO CHRISTIANITY AS ADAPTED 


Sgt igh ee oe ee ee a ee 


no existence save in his own mind, and to which he 
‘ gives a local habitation and a name only in his own 
verse. See, then, the quality which the religious 
conceptions by which we are to fashion the Mystery 
to. ourselves must possess. The quality must be the 
same which attaches to all the products of the creative 
faculties—the quality, that is to say, of unreality, of 
untruth, shadows, dreams ; and it is only in keeping 
with this quality of our religious conceptions, to tell 
us, as he does, that these conceptions can never attain 
to fixity ; that they must be in a state of perpetual 
flux from age to age; that they must always flee 
like ghosts before the daylight of scientific thought. 
Of course they must, if they are not truths, but 
fancies; not religious prose, but religious poetry ; 
not religious facts, but religious fictions—" airy no- 
things.” But alas for the lot of poor humanity, i 

having to toil on from age to age, like Sisyphus in the 
Shades, at this bootless rolling up the hill of concep- 
tions and ideas of God, which no sooner reach the 
summit than they roll down again to the bottom, and. 
the work of religious conception has all to be done 
over again !—or in being doomed, like the daughters of 
Danaus in the same unreal regions, to be for ever 
pouring water into a cask which is for ever discharging 
it! These are the fabled torments of the Shades— 
tormenting, because utterly vain and useless ; and 
- such-like must be the tormenting toils of men when 
sent, as some of our philosophers would send them, to 

218 


- 


TO THE DEEPER WANTS OF THE HUMAN HEART. 


be for ever working out conceptions of religious truth 
under the stimulus of religious feeling, when, without 
any revelation of God by work or word, God is and. 
must be unknowable and unknown. 

Such, then, are the substitutes for Chiistianitg 
proposed to the world by these four distinguished 
masters of intellectual philosophy and_ science. - 
Does not the old proverb of the East, once quoted 
by our Lord, apply admirably to this case—“No 
man having tasted old wine straightway desireth 
new, for he saith, The old is better”? We render 
all due homage to the genius of these philosophers 
and men of science’ in their own departments of 
human knowledge, but we cannot think that any of 
them are destined to be remembered as founders of 
religions. The worship of the universe, the worship of 
humanity, the religion of humanity, and the religion 
of “the creative faculties,” can never possibly become 
religions of the feart ; and it is by their hold of the 
heart that all world-conquering religions grow and 
prosper and prevail. These new religions are all the 
latest growths of knowledge or science. And “Who 
loves not knowledge ?” demands Tennyson—thought- 
fullest and most melodious of our living poets—in his 
“In Memoriam”: who teaches us, however, in that 
great work, a much truer and deeper wisdom than 
any of these masters of knowledge :— 

“Who loves not Knowledge? Who shall rail 
Against her beauty? May she mix 
219 


- 


CHRISTIANITY ADAPTED TO THE HEART'S WANTS. 


With men, and prosper! Who shall fix 
Her pillars? Let her work prevail. 


But on her forehead sits a fire ; 
She sets her forward countenance, 
And leaps into the future chance, 
Submitting all things to desire. 


‘Half-grown as yet, a child, and vain ; 
She cannot fight the fear of death. 
What is she, cut from love and faith, 

But some wild Pallas fromthe brain 


Of demons, fiery-hot to burst 

All barriers in her onward race 

For power? Let her know her place : 
She is the second, not the first. 


A higher hand must make her mild, 
If all be not in vain ; and guide 
Her footsteps, moving side by side 

With Wisdom, like the younger child. 


For she is earthly, of the mind ; 

But Wisdom heavenly, of the soul. 

O friend, who camest to thy goal 2 
So early, leaving me behind, 


I would the great world grew like thee, 
Who grewest not alone in power 
And knowledge, but, by year and hour, 
In reverence and in charity.” 


THE ADEQUACY OF \THE CHRISTIAN ANSWER 
ZO ALL DEEPER QUESTIONS. 


BYS TELE, 


LORD BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER AND BRISTOL. 


THE ADEQUACY OF THE CHRISTIAN 
_ ANSWER TO ALL DEEPER QUESTIONS. 


I HAVE now the responsibility of bringing before you 
a form of evidence, in reference to the truth of Chris- 
tianity, which is felt by many at the present time to 
carry with it no small amount of conviction. 

It is the evidence afforded by the fact which it will 
be my duty to substantiate—that the Christian system 
supplies to every sober and candid enquirer answers 
with regard to all the deeper questions relating to 
human life far more soul-satisfying and far more con- 
vincing than are furnished by other systems, whether 
of religion or philosophy. 

What I desire, in fact, to-maintain, is this,—that 
whenever we make an attempt to solve the mysteries 
and account for the inconsistencies which human life 
presents to us on every side, whenever we try to give 
-a reasonable account of the varied phenomena which 
even a single day’s experience may bring before us, 
we find the solutions suggested by Christianity, and 
_ the explanations deduced from the ground-principles 
223 


- 


THE ADEQUACY OF THE CHRISTIAN ANSWER 


of the Christian creed, immeasurably more consonant 
with reason and more accordant with phenomena 
than any others that have yet been adduced. The _ 
proof of this will form the subject-matter of this 
Lecture, and may rightly be regarded as involving a 
subsidiary evidence to the truth of Christianity of 
considerable force and validity. We do not, of 
course, claim that this assertion, even if it be clearly 
shown to be true, carries with it anything more than — 
a presumption that the system which supplies these 
answers and solutions is itself based on truth and 
reality. The argument is confessedly only a subsi- 
diary one ; but yet it has been found by many of the 
most cultivated minds so reassuring, so persuasive, 
so inwardly convincing, that if we were able to insti- 
tute a comparison between the amount of influence 
exercised at the present time by the various forms of 
Christian evidence, positive or negative, we should — 
find that to this form, which we are now about to 
develop, would be assigned the foremost place in 
importance and in real practical persuasiveness. The 
general statements of those influenced by it would 
probably be of the following import :—" We find 
ourselves encompassed with difficulties and mysteries 
in reference to human life, its origin, purpose, charac- 
teristics, and general relations to the system of things 
around us. For four thousand years these difficulties 
have been felt by all the more competent thinkers of 
‘all cultivated nations. Answers have been given in ~ 
224 3 


oy 


TO ALL DEEPER QUESTIONS. 


every varied form, and have received every varying “ 
degree of authoritative sanction. They have been 
embodied in ancient religions ; they have formed the 
very life of ancient formularies, and have been the- 
‘quickening principle of ancient creeds. Philosophers oe 
have expanded them into systems, lawgivers have \ 
incorporated them in their codes; statesmen have 
rested on them; historians have illustrated them ; 
poets have sung of them: and yet all these answers 
—all, save the answer of Christianity—have been 
ultimately felt to be, and often sadly avowed to be, 
unsatisfying and inadequate. The sombre questions 
that man’s anxious heart, age after age, has, put 
forward—the Whence, the Why, and the Whither, of 
human life and destiny—have never been answered 
in any manner that has been found to satisfy the 
feelings and the reason; and unanswered and un- 
answerable these questions still remain, save on the 
postulates of Revealed Religion, and the ground- 
- principles of our common Christianity.” * 


* It is hoped that this lecture may incidentally disprove 
what may properly be called a very hard saying on the part 
of the author of the recent, and now well-known, attack on 
Christianity, entitled Supernatural Religion. This saying is as 
follows :—‘It is singular how little there is in the supposed 
révelation of alleged information regarding that which is be-_ 
yond the limits ‘of human thought; but that little is of a 
character which reason declares to be the ‘wildest delusion.’” 
(Vol. ii. p. 490.) Whatever may be said as to the nature of: 
- the information, this would seem to be certain—that the amount 


oa Oo: 


THE ADEQUACY OF THE CHRISTIAN ANSWER 


Res ACU Pr ie ca Se oe 2 ee ee re ae ara: NSE 


Such would seem to be the general statement of 
the case on the part of those who are most influenced 
_ by that form of evidence which we are seeking to 
develop. And we must admit, at the very outset, 
that there is at least some clear indication afforded 
by one of the current tendencies of thought in our 
own times that such statements are, in part at least, 
undoubtedly correct. That indication is supplied by 
the tendency of all modern’ non-Christian thinkers 
who are in any degree consistent, not only to avow, 
but to put forward as a necessary article of a philoso- 
phic creed, our enduring ignorance upon all the ‘deeper*: 
questions relating to human life, and to insist upon the 
plain impossibility of our deducing any satisfactory. 
inferences from the phenemena around us as to man's 
purpose and destiny, or his relation to the invisible — 
and the future. Some doubtful gleams of light have 
been supposed to make the darkness that rests on the 
origin of our race a little less palpable than before, 
but, in regard of life as it passes, its true theory and 
significance, all seems to be either hidden or unknow- 
able. “Life,” says one of. these writers,* “is a secret 
for us, and will always remain so ;” its purpose un- 
known, its future inconceivable. Even in reference to 
the question of an endurance in any form after death, 


is not small. Contrast the sketch given by Butler (Azalogy, 
part ii, chap. 7) of the wide scope, as well as distinctive 
character, of the revelation. 
* Hellwald, Cudturgeschichte, p. 7. 
226 


TO ALL DEEPER QUESTIONS. 


the least hopeless in this respect of recent non-Christian 
writers* finds no assurance whatever of a life after 
death on the grounds of natural religion, and con- 
cedes to us little more than the possibility of indulging 
in the hope of future existence, if such a hope should | 
be felt to be either conducive to satisfaction or use- 
fulness, With the justness or otherwise of such con- 
clusions we are not at present concerned, but we may 
at any rate appeal to the prevalence of. this creed of 
nescience,f as indicating that the answers hitherto 
given to the deeper questions relating to human life 
have been felt by cultivated thinkers to be inadequate 
and unsatisfactory. Ignorance has been deemed to 
be a safer creed. : | 

Whether the answers given by Christianity will 
ultimately meet with any better: acceptance at the 
hand of this school of fhinkers, may be considered 
very problematical ; but still something will be gained 
for the general argument, if we show not. only that 
the answers supplied by Christianity are intrinsically 


* Mill, Three Essays on Religion, p. 198, See below, p. 277, 
note. 

+ All modern thinkers who insist strongly upon the relativity 
of all knowledge seem ultimately to arrive at the profession in 
some form or other of this cheerless belief. ‘ By continually 
seeking to know,” says. Mr.. Spencer, “and being continually 
thrown back with a deepened conviction of the impossibility of 
knowing, we may keep alive the consciousness that it is alike 
our highest wisdom and our highest duty to regard that through 
which all things exist as the Unknowable.” (First Principles, 
De 13, ed..23 8 > 

; 227 


THE ADEQUACY OF THE CHRISTIAN ANSWER 


more reasonable than any others that have as yet 
~ been adduced, but also that they present a thoroughly 
intelligible theory of human life, and a theory that 
accounts for many of the more perplexing pheno- 
mena.* 

There are, however, two of three preliminary con- 
siderations to which attention must be directed before 
we enter on a formal discussion of the answers of 
Christianity, and contrast them with the answets 
which have been furnished by other religions or phi- 
losophies. And the first is this,—that we must clear 
these answers of all the incrustations that have formed _ 
round them, and have often been claimed to be an 
integral part of the original substance.t. What we 


* This particular form of evidence is specified among those 
enumerated by Pascal: “La doctrine qui rend raison de tout 
[iusqu’aux contrariétés qui se rencontrent dans ’homme, et 
toutes les autres choses singuliéres, surnaturelles, et divines que 
y éclatent de toutes parts].” Pensées, p. 365 (258), 368 (174), 
ed. Faugére. The words in brackets were, however, probably 
added by early editors. e aos 

+ There is perhaps no tendency which operates more injuri- 
ously at the present time than that of substituting for the 
answers of Scripture answers which are really ecclesiastical rather 
than biblical It may not be desirable to draw the sharp 
distinctions which we find in recent dogmatical works (as for 
example, in Rothe’s posthumous Dogmatik, Heidelberg 1870,) 
between the answers of Scripture and those of the “ Kirchliche 
Lehre,” which is often studiously contrasted with it; but it 
‘certainly is necessary to revert far more to direct Scriptural 
statements, and also to consider those statements with due 
reference to the general teaching of the inspired writer from 


228 


70 ALL DEEPER QUESTIONS. 


have now to consider are those answers which are 
clearly and unquestionably set forth by Holy Scrip- 
ture ;—not the answers of any system or school of | 
theology, but the answers which calm and fair reason- 
ing derives from those portions of Scripture which » 
have been judged by all competent interpreters to 
refer clearly and plainly to the matter under discus- 
sion. Nothing has tended more seriously to weaken 
the true force of the answers of Christianity than the 
doctrinal additions with which they have been asso- 
ciated; and, in an argument such as the present, 
nothing can be of more vital importance than this,— 
that our statement of Christian truth should be de- 
rived clearly and directly from Holy Scripture, and 
be set forth in the fullest breadth and simplicity. 

On the other hand, in contrasting with Christianity 

the answers of other systems, we must use no less 
care in presenting these answers in the clearest form 
in which they appear to have emerged from the 
systems to which they belong. And this, it may be 
observed, is no easy task, especially in the department 


“whom they are taken. Hence the use of such works as Reuss, 
Théologie Chrétienne (ed. 3, Strasburg 1860), Messner, Deze 
Lehre der Apostel (Leipz. 1856), Van Oosterzee,. Theology of 
- the New Testament (Transl., London 1871),—in all of which 
not only the general teaching of Scripture, but also the dis- 
tinctive teaching of each one of the sacred writers, is clearly set 
forth. On the subject generally, see Martensen, Chrzstian 
Dogmatics, § 27, p. 51 (Clark), and the brief but suggestive com- 
ments of Voigt, Fundamentaldogmatik, p. 676 sq., Gotha 1874. 


THE ADEQUACY OF THE CHRISTIAN ANSWER 


of modern philosophies. In the great religions of the 
past, and in the leading systems of early philosophy, 
we can commonly elicit with some fair amount 
of approximate correctness the leading truths which 
they embody,* and the answers they supply to the 
simple and broad questions which will come before 
us in this-lecture. But it is otherwise when we have 


* Even here, however, great difficulties are met with by the 
candid enquirer. To say nothing of the difficulties in this respect 
connected with sucha religion as Brahminism, which has under- 
gone the modifications of thirty centuries of :acute and restless 
thought,—or of a religion such as Buddhism, which has not only 
a boundless canon, but has been variously modified by the 
characteristics of the widely separate nations among which it 
has flourished : to say nothing of such difficulties, but to take 
very simple cases, we may find it often far from easy to state 
correctly the views of ancient religious thinkers in reference to 
the broadest questions. To take an instance, we may find it 
stated by so careful a writer as Archdeacon Hardwick (Christ 
and Other Masters, p. 305, ed. 3), in reference to the broad 
question of the nature of man, that “vice in the system of the 
Chinaman is only a rare and casual deviation from the path of 
rectitude” ; and yet when we consider carefully the language of 
the great thinker (Mencius)-on whose authority it is made, we 
find that after all no more was meant by the declaration that 
“man’s nature is good,” than has been maintained by Bishop 
Butler in his Sermons on Human Nature (see Legge, Chinese 
Classics, vol. ii. pp. 60-66, London 1861), where the teach- 

ing of Mencius on this question is carefully analysed. Very 
similarly, we find writers of the highest standard by no means 
agreed on such very general questions as the original mono- 
theism or otherwise of the earliest of the Vedas; compare, 
for example, Wilson, Zssays, vol. ii. p. 51, with Muir, Sanskrit 
Texts, vol.-v. p. 412 sq. 
230; 


TO ALL DEEPER QUESTIONS. 


Fe Eee ee nee Ne a ; 


to deal with modern systems of thought. Very often 
the answer we may be seeking is advisedly not 
formulated, and studiously left floating in the general — 
atmosphere of the system. Very often the answer 
that may be given does not fairly emerge from the 
system, but is really due to speculative inferences 
which, as some recent instances have shown, science 
is often quite as ready as theology to found upon very 
insufficient data, and to draw from very fluctuating 
premises. Very often, too, a clear answer upon some 
of the questions that will come before us in this lecture » 
can hardly be elicited, owing to the complex nature 
of the system to which we may appeal,* orto, the 
changes and modifications which, as in the case of the 
philosophy of Schelling, may have been silently intro- 
duced in its development. 
Such are but a few of the difficulties associated 
with our subject,—difficulties which, it may be frankly 
~ confessed, we shall probably be unable wholly to sur- 
mount, but of which it seems desirable to take some 
cognisance before we enter into the momentous and 


* It may seem strange that, on such a broad eon as this, 
—whether a given writer was or was nota pantheist,—any doubt 
could-be entertained ; and yet I believe it is still a debateable 
question among the students of Hegel whether he is or is not 
~ to be considered an exponent of that cheerless belief. His 

statement, “ ohne Welt.ist Gott nicht Gott,” seems to leave but: *. 
little doubt on the subject : see Ebrard, Afologetzk, § 82, p. 177, 
and comp. Mill (Dr.), Panthetstic Principles, part 1." 473; note: 
see, however, Stirling, Zhe Secret of Hegel, vol. ii. p. 580. 
231 


THE ADEQUACY OF THE CHRISTIAN ANSWER 


debateable questions which will now claim our closest 
consideration. : | 

All the deeper questions relating to human life will 
be found to be included in four or five familiar but com- 
prehensive questions: What? and Whence? Why? 
For what? and Whither? Or more fully: What 
and Whence is man? Why is he asheis? For what 
called into being? Whither, this life ended? These 
questions seem to cover the whole ground, and to pre- 
sent to us conveniently and compendiously these four 
subjects,—the origin and nature of man, the moral 
meaning of human life in its relation to the constitu- . 
tion of things around us, man’s purpose, and man’s 
future,—all of which we will now endeavour to con- 
sider as fully as the limits of a single lecture will 
permit, and as far as Scripture and expérience will 
enable us to speak. 

Let us begin with the question that for the last few 
years has been occupying the foreground of modern 
thought, and on the true answer to which the answers 
to the remaining questions in a great. degree depend. 
What is the answer of Revealed Religion and of 
Christianity in reference to the What andthe Whence 
(for it will be convenient to take these two questions 
together),—the origin and the nature of man ? What is 
the answer? Clear, definite, and intelligible: that man. 
was dust of the earth quickened by the breath of God,* 


* Gen. ii. 7. The important point in this verse is that man - 
came into being by no process of emanation, but was specially 
232 


TO ALL DEEPER QUESTIONS. 
[ieee os 


and specially formed in His image; * and further,— 
that, as an inspired apostle told a cultivated heathen 
- audience, “God has made of ove blood all nations for 
to dwell on the face of the earth.” t ‘ 
Such, very briefly, is the Scriptural and Christiaty | 
answer in its broadest outlines: on the one hand dis- © 
tinct in reference to all points of primary importance, 
—such, for example, as the special creation of man, 
his formation in the image of God, his spiritual as 
well as material nature, and the unity of the race; on 
the other hand, silent or partially silent on subordinate 
questions,—such as the antiquity or otherwise of the ; 
human family, and similar matters of detail on which 
‘some differences of opinion may very fairly be ad- 


and directly formed by God out of existing materials on the 
one side, and out of the blessed fulness of the Divine life on the 
other. Holy Scripture thus testifies both to the greatness ‘and 
littleness of man. See Delitzsch, Bzblical Psychology, p. 88 sq. 
(Transl.) ; comp. Plitt, Hvangelische Glaubenslehre, § 27, vol. i. 
p. 204, and Van Oosterzee, Christian Dogmatics, s 67, p. 365 


_ -(Transl.) 


* Gen. i. 27. On this cardinal and most important state- 
ment, see Martensen, Dogmatics, § 72, p. 135 sq. (Transl. ) ; 
Miiller, Lehre von der Stinde, vol. ii. p. 483 $4. ; and comp. 
Rothe, Dogmatih, part i., § 62, p. 260. : 

+ Acts xvii. 26. See oe in loc., who rightly points to 
the expression e& évds aipatos as Le that mankind had 
‘one earthly father, as they had one heavenly Father. On the 
unity of the race, which, as Van Oosterzee truly observes, is of 
real importance in reference to religious and moral life, see 
Ebrard, Apologetik, § 125, note p. 258; and on its spiritual 
significance, Martensen, Dogmatics, §77, p. 149 (Transl.) 


233 


THE ADEQUACY OF THE CHRISTIAN ANSWER 


mitted. In regard of the last point—the duration of 
man’s existence on earth—it may just be remarked in 
passing, that the race is presumably not of the vast an- 
tiquity that has been recently claimed for it; but still 
it must -be admitted, in the narrative itself there is but 
little from which any clear inferences can with safety 
be drawn either way. The chronological data that 
follow seem to imply a very recent origin; and such, 
no doubt, is the current and popular belief. Still as 
these data are themselves somewhat fluctuating and 
uncertain, the inferences drawn from them can never 
wisely be pressed or insisted upon.* Further than 
this, it ought -not-to be forgotten that if we are pre- 
pared to concede that the history of the genesis of 
the earth is told only in broad and general outlines, 
_ admirable alike for ‘their simplicity and their now 


* See Lenormant, Les Premiéres Civilisations, vol. i. p. 53,— 
where the difficulty of arriving at any distinct conclusion on this 
subject is simply but clearly put forward. This much, how- 
ever, may certainly be said,—that if the fifty-nine centuries, 
according to the ordinary chronology, be deemed too short, the 
directly contrary assertions are utterly exaggerated. There 
appears to be one assumption always made as to the deposits, 
in which or beneath which supposed traces of man have been 
discovered—viz., that the accumulation has always been at the 
same rate. Competent observers, however, give very good 
reasons for believing that in such places as Kent’s Cavern or 
the Valley of the Somme, the rate of accumulation was far 
greater in earlier times, and that the vast retrospective calcu- 
lations are very untrustworthy. See a recent pamphlet by 
T. K. Callard, entitled Geological Evidences of Antiquity of 
Man Reconsidered, Lond. 1875. 


234 


TO ALL ‘DEEPER QUESTIONS. 


se 


recognised scientific truth,* we may certainly admit 
that it may be exactly the same in reference to the 
history of the genesis of the race. That history may 
be told in similarly broad and general outlines, which - 
future discovery will-as abundantly verify as it has 
already verified the revelation as to the home of the 
race, and the formation of the phenomenal world. Nay, 
more,—it does not seem too much to say that, in refer- 
ence to these subordinate questions, faith may hereafter. 
owe much to science, if faith will but resolve to remain 
patient and confident. Difficulties in reference to the 
early history of the human family, which now often 
- press very heavily on the minds of believing and 
reverent thinkers, may be removed by the results 
towards which recent discoveries are thought to be 
leading us. The Atonement itself may even receive a 
fuller and deeper significance.t The eternal love of the 

ey Lhe naturalness, simplicity, and grandeur of the Mosaic 
narrative of the Creation have been recognised by all recent 
commentators, and especially by Knobel. We have here the 
true form of what seems to have existed among the primeval 
traditions of some of the earliest nations, e.g. Chaldeans (see 
below, p. 238, note), Iranians (in one of the hymns of the Zend- 
Avesta; see Khorda-Avesta, Spiegel, vol. iil. p..241; comp. 
p. 52 sq.), and Etruscans (see Suidas, s. v. Tuppyvia) ; see 
D’Eichtal, Wém. sur le Texte Primitif du Premier Recit..de la 
Creation, p. 15 sq., Paris 1875. 

+ There is no point in which our modern theology is more 
defective than in its practically limited estimate of the blessed 
effects and true characteristics of the Atonement. Though we 
all may feel and believe that it was “for the sins of the whole 
world,” yet so little is the re¢vospective, as well as the present and 


235° 


THE ADEQUACY OF THE CHRISTIAN ANSWER 


Son of God for a race, possibly blighted and suffering, 
after its fall, to an extent hitherto never even im- 
agined,»* may perhaps hereafter be more profoundly 
realized ; and Science may again be found, as she has 
ever been proved to be in similar questions, the hand- 
. maid of Religion, and an enduring witness to the real 
imprudence and even peril of over-hasty deductions, or 
of concessions to as yet precarious hypotheses.t+ 


prospective, character of the Atonement generally recognised, _ 
and so little has it been brought forward in the current teaching - 
of the Church, that a writer like Mr. Mill can almost confidently 
and triumphantly point to the fact that the precious gift was so 
long withheld, as ‘fa moral contradiction which no ingenuity can 
resolve, and no sophistry explain away.” (Three Essays on Relt- 
gion, p. 115.) Had the true cosmical significance of the work of. 
Christ, as it was ever set forth in the earliest teaching of the 
Church (comp. Irenzeus, Her. v. 21), been more dwelt upon in 
our own times, the calm and fair writer whom we have quoted 
would never have used such unqualified language. He would at 
any rate have.admitted that on the true Christian theory the force 
of the apparent moral contradiction was greatly modified. 

* Without committing ourselves to any views as to the anti- _ 
quity of the race, still less to accepting the belief that man 
appeared prior to the concluding phase of the glacial period 
(comp. Lyell, Antéguity of Man, ch. xiii. p. 273), it may be 
possible that in the various changes in the temperature and 
general character of the earth’s surface which may have taken 
place in pre-historic times, the race—as at the Flood—may have 
undergone wide-spread sufferings. See Lenormant, Les Pre- 
mibres Civilisations, vol. i. p. 62. It is certainly curious, 
though perhaps nothing more, that traces of such a supposition 
are to be found in the Zend-Avesta. See the Vendidad, Fargard 
7, 859; vol. i. p. 62, Spiegel. 

+ There is a tendency at the present time in really religious 
236 


TO ALL DEEPER QUESTIONS. 


Naa eee eee ee ea rariman= Ries th cunts = Qik DRaIDMSReTEED ches ASIDE RAT AR ESI Ti ITS ERE TIGNES 


But to return to the answer we have just formu- 
lated. Before we contrast it with the more current 
modern answers in reference to the origin of the race, 
let us observe,—First, that the answer given is in such __ 


-. general accordance with that given by the two most 


ancient of the heathen religions—Brahminism, and 
Mazdeeism or the old creed of Persia,*—and in such 


writers which ought carefully to be watched ; and it is this,—of 
framing adjustments to meet what are assumed over-hastily to be 
certain and accepted scientific truths, but which really are as yet 
nothing more than at best probable hypotheses. For example, 
in reference to this very subject, the antiquity of man, we find 
assumptions, either made or revived, which involve far greater 
difficulties than they remove. In the interesting Aspects of 
Modern Thought, by Mr. Baring Gould (Lond. 1875), the old 
idea of a special (Adamite) race, chosen out of the general 
(anthropoid) race, has been revived ; but such a view seems to 
introduce far more difficulties than it removes, and to necessitate 
a strain being put on several passages in the inspired narrative 
which seems inconsistent with sound principles of interpretation. 
Comp. Van as Christian Dogmatics, £66, py 4621 
(Transl.) 

* Among the many records and monuments of ancient re- 
ligions that have recently been rendered accessible to general 
readers, none is more interesting than the Zend-Avesta. It 
contains ‘portions (the Gathas) of great antiquity, which seem to 
confirm the opinion that a distinct monotheism is to be traced 
behind all the nature-worship of our Aryan forefathers. See 
Cox, Mythology of the Aryan Nations, vol. i. p. 332. -Brah- 
minism, as it has been well remarked by M. Bréal (Hercule e¢ 
Cacus, p. 129), kept to the old belief only in the letter ; Maz- 
deeism preserved its spirit. The Zend-Avesta has been fouled 
into German by Prof. Spiegel (Avesta, die Heiligen Schriften 
der Parsen, 3 vols., Leipz. 1852, 1859, 1863), and “elacidatadt by 


237 


\ 


THE ADEQUACY OF THE CHRISTIAN ANSWER 


close and even startling coincidence with newly dis- 
covered monuments of the early belief of ancient and 
almost pre-historic Babylon,* that we seem justified __ 
in kelieving- that, in the answer of Holy Scripturé to 
the question now before us, we have not only the 
declarations of earliest Hebrew writers, but the voice 
of the most primeval tradition. Secondly, we have 
the only reasonable account that can be given of that 
instinctive belief in the unity of the race which seems 
involved in the very idea and conception of humanity. 
The conception ‘of the family seems so naturally to 
lead backward and backward to that of the one 
original family, that we can hardly be surprised to 
find that this latently forms the substratum of all 
modern theories of humanity, and is even admitted by 
scientific writers to become more and more probable 
in proportion as we lengthen the period of man’s 
occupancy of the earth.t In the physical world the 


valuable introductions and notes. See also the same writer’s 
Evrédnische Alterthumskunde, vol.ii., Leipz. 1873, where the re- 
ligion of the Iranian races is carefully investigated. 

* For an account of the remarkable Chaldzean. legend here 
referred to, which, it is to be hoped, will soon be published, see 
Daily Telegraph, March 4, 1875.. The equally remarkable 
legend of the Flood will be found in Smith, Assyrian Disco- 
veries, pp. 165-222, Lond. 1875 ; Lenormant, Premieres Civili- 
sations, vol. ii. pp. 23-47. The nature of the connexion of the 
Accadian with the Semitic religions is as yet open to considerable 
differences of opinion. See Lenormant, La Langue Primitive. 
de la Chaldée, p. 388, Paris 1875. 

+ See Lyell, Antiquity of Man, chap. xx. p. 451, Lond, 1873. 

238 


TO ALL DEEPER QUESTIONS. 


river may be swelled by many. affluents, and have 
drawn its first waters from several separate sources ; 
but it is now felt more and more that it has not been 


so with the great stream of our race—nay, that, inde- 7 
péndently of all arguments, we turn from such a view ‘ 


with increasing repugnancy.. The brotherhood of man 
seems to carry with it,and almost demand our accept- 
ance of the idea of a common fatherhood. Though 
it has been asserted, again and again, that there is 
really a wider gulf between civilised and savage mam 
than between the lowest savage and the highest order 


of ape, yet all. modern research in physiology and in, 


language is pointing exactly in a contrary direction,* 
and is tending to show that the oneness of the race is 
no less presumable from purely anthropological infer- 
ence, than certain both from the express declarations 


« The statement of Van Oosterzee (Christian Dogmatics, § 66, 
p. 363, Transl.), “ that natural science has not yet discovered any 
races of men so completely different, that it is really impossible 
to regard them as branches of one tree,” seems now increasingly 
to be admitted as true. The subject has been investigated with 
great care and apparent exactness by Rauch, Die Einhect des 
Menschengeschlechtes, Augsb. 1873. The various physiological 
authorities on the subject are specified by Ebrard, Afologetzk, 
§ 125, note; comp. also Hardwick, Christ and Other Masters, 
pp. 34sq., ed. 3, Lond. 1874. The arguments founded on recent 
philological investigations appear to be unanswerable : see the 
recent and important work of Reinisch, Ezmheztliche Ursprung 
der Sprachen, Wien 1874; and the accurate and learned trea- 
tises of my friend Rev. R. Ellis, Wumerals as Signs of Primeval 
Unity among Mankind, Lond, 1873, and Peruvia Scythica, 
chap. v., Lond. 1875. 

may 239 


J 


“THE ADEQUACY OF THE CHRISTIAN ANSWER 


of Scripture and from the fundamental reasonings of 
Revealed Religion.* ; | 

Contrast with this the contrary opinion—that Evo- 
_ lution is the history of being, and that man came to ~ 
be man by slow emergence from a lower type of crea- 
ture, and that, by the law of “Natural Selection,” 
during the lapse of innumerable ages (for the amount 
of time which the theory demands is almost limitless), f 
he acquired what our very instincts lead us to call 
“the gift of speech,” passed the mystic Rubicon that 
separates consciousness from self-consciousness, and | 
-emerged- through dim and clouded instincts into the 
clear light and wondrous realm of personal love and 
self-realizing existence. Contrast the two opinions; 


* If we only consider the reasoning in the fifth chapter of the 
Epistle to the Romans, it really seems surprising how a candid | 
and careful writer, like-Rothe, could dismiss this subject in a 

_ single brief paragraph, as involving no serious considerations. 
See Dogmatik, § 63, part i. p. 265, and contrast with it Plitt, 
Evangelische Glaubenslehre, § 27, part i. p. 206 sq., Gotha 
1863. | 

+ One of the latest and not least able of the defenders of the — 
“ Natural Selection” theory thus specifies the time man may be 
supposed to have been upon the earth : “ Ten thousand centuries 
before the time of Homer and the Vedic poets, wild men, with 
prute-like crania, carried on the struggle’ for existence with 
mammoths, tigers, and gigantic bears, long since extinct. And 
 yecent researches make it probable that even this enormous. 
period must be multiplied six- or eight-fold before we can arrive 
at the time when men first appeared upon the earth as creatures 
zoologically distinct from apes.” Fiske, Owdtdines of Cosmic 
Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 291, Lond. 1874; comp. Darwin, Descent 
of Man, vol. 1. p. 199. 

240 


LO ALE VDEELFER OUESTIONS. 


concede the exhaustless time that is needed for this 
latter hypothesis; grant the missing links that are 
hopelessly absent ; accept the confessedly speculative 
elements in the theory;* ignore the difficulties that — 
have been found in numberless details; set aside the | 
physiological objections as futile or microscopic; f 
treat the alleged difficulty of any conceivable amount 
of solar heat, under the present conditions of solar 
physics, being sufficient to meet the demands that this 
second answer must make upon it,as purely imaginary ; 
and regard the assumed collisions with recognised 
geological facts, or with the inferences of fair geologi- 

cal reasoning as unsubstantiated or illusory,t—make © 


“ This is very distinctly admitted ; Mr. Darwin himself says, 
“Many of the views which have been advanced are highly 
_ speculative.” Descent of Man, vol. ii. p. 385; compare also 
Hackel, Natirliche Schipfungs-geschichte, p. 23. Theologians 
are frequently charged with advancing merely speculative hypa- 
theses, and, in this respect, are contrasted unfavourably with 
men of science. It is only fair to remark that the inferences 
frequently drawn by Science, and especially on subjects of the 
nature now before us, are often quite as devoid of proof as anv 
that have been advanced by Theology. 

t The objections that have been urged by competent physiolo- 
gists as founded on the structure of the skull of man, when- 
compared’ with that of apes, are apparently of considerable 
-weight. The special treatises on this subject are enumerated 
by Ebrard, Afologetik, § 167, note 2, p. 383. 

t The arguments against the theory as suggested by geological 
considerations are very carefully stated by Ebrard, Afologetzh, 
§ 168, p. 384 sq. Compare also the comments already made 
above in reference to the precarious character of some of the 
geological assumptions; p. 234, note. The ‘remarkable con- 

241 R 


- 


THE ADEQUACY “OF THE CHRISTIAN ANSWER 


all these varied concessions, assume for a moment that 
the two answers rest on equiponderant evidence, and 
simply and nakedly contrast the two answers to the 
primary question, and this at least may be asserted : 
that the first appears to give a more intelligible ac- 
count of existing phenomena, and is more in harmony 
with what would seem to be fundamental conceptions 
than the second. And to this assertion it might also 
be added that the view which Christianity sets before 
us of the Whence of humanity makes no larger de- 
mands on the reason, and puts no greater strain on 
the verifying faculty, than that theory of man’s origin 
which is claimed to be the Newtonian discovery 
of our own generation, but which has already been 
__ found to need some serious degree of rehabilitation.* 
> If this be so,—if every deeper feeling of the human 


clusion relative to the rapid succession of systems of fossiliferous 
strata, to which the theory appears to lead us, is admitted by 
Fiske, Cosmic Philosophy, vol. 11. p. 40. ' 

* It has been pointed out by Mr. Wallace that there must 
have been a time at which man’s brain structure, rather than his 
merely physical form and appearance, was that which was 
modified by the principle of natural selection. See Matural 
Selection, p. 311 sq., ed. 2, 1871 ; comp. Spencer, Principles of 
Biology, part ili, ch. 13, p. 469, note. As Mr. Fiske, so far 
rightly, observes : “ When an animal has once appeared endowed 
with sufficient intelligence to chip a stone and hurl a weapon, 
natural selection will take advantage of variations in this 
intelligence, to the comparative neglect of purely physical 
variations.” Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 319 ; 
compare the interesting, though almost wildly speculative, 
Unseen, Universe, p. 190, Lond. 1875. 

242 


70 ALL DEEFER QUESTIONS. 


heart protests against this cheerless answer,—if calmly. 
exercised reason is forced to admit that, under every 
moral aspect, the answer of Christianity, and of the 
- old faiths of the early ages of the world, its the higher 
and the more elevating,—if every glow of earthly 
love seems to call forth the feeling that there must be 
One from whom every ray of love comes forth, and 
to whom every manifestation of responsive love must 
necessarily return,—no First Cause scarcely separable, 
even in thought, from the totality of phenomenal 
existence,* no omnipresent Energy in an inscrutable 
Universe, no lost God sunk in the fathomless depths 
of infinite causalities, no dead Pan in a breathing 
world of life, but an ever-present Father because 
a Creator, and a Creator because an _ ever-loving 
as well as an se and personal God, an 
* There would seem to be, as Mr. Lewes observes (Histor “y 
of Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 194, ed. 3), only three views of the 
relation of the Finite to the Infinite: (1) Co-eternity of Mind 
and Matter; (2) Existence of one Principle, sometimes con- 
ceived as Mind, sometimes as Matter; (3) Existence of one 
Principle, the Creator of the Universe, but apart from it. Of 
these, the second seems to be that towards which, in some form 
or other, modern non-Christian thought is gravitating. Either 
God is regarded as a ‘‘natura naturans,” conscious or uncon- 
scious, or as a Power manifested through all phenomena, but 
utterly inscrutable and unknowable. The latter is the view of 
Mr. Spencer, and apparently the view taken by the majority of 
modern non-Christian writers. See Fzrst Principles, § 31, p. 108 


sq., ed..3; comp. Fiske, Cosmic Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 417. On 
the paralogism really involved in Pantheism, see Ebrard, 4fo/o- 


gettk, § 83, p. 177. 
243 


THE ADEQUACY OF THE CHRISTIAN ANSWER 


this be true in reference to the answer to our 
first deeper question, how much more will it be 
found to be so in reference to those that remain! 
_If, in reference to an answer that involves necessarily 
some physical considerations, the answer of Revealed 
Religion is apparently the more natural, and the more 
consistent with phenomena—and so, consequently, the | 
more credible—-we shall, perhaps not unnaturally, 
‘expect to find the same superiority in the Christian 
answer when we pass onward to the far deeper ques- 
tions that relate to the moral mystery of human life, 
and the moral purpose of the individual. If we seem 
to feel the superiority of the Christian answer in refer- 
ence to the nature and origin of man, we may reason- 
ably expect to trace it in the answer to the mysterious 
Why and still more mysterious For What,—those two | 
deep questions which relate to man’s present condi- 
tion and the ultimate purpose of his being. And so ~ 
certainly we find it. 3 

II. Let us pass, then, to a consideration of the 
~ answer of Revealed Religion to the second and more . 
difficult question, Why, if such be the origin and 
nature of man, is man in the state in which now we — 
find him? Why are all things in the moral and 
even material world as now they are? What light 
does Christianity throw, as compared with. other 
systems, on the moral mystery of human life under 
the present dispensation of things? 
~ Let us attempt briefly to answer these questions. 

244 


T0 ALL DEEPER QUESTIONS. 


Gerth te tr ee eee 


In reference to the moral mystery of life, two of 


the gravest phenomena which present themselves are - 
the apparent waste of moral energy, and the seeming. 


frustration of much of higher moral purpose. “Vanity 


Stirennareretoracaine a2 


of vanities,” saith the preacher; “vanity of vanities, - 


all is vanity.”* And that it is so phenomenally no one 
can doubt. Mr. Mill speaks of Nature “emptying 
her shafts upon the best and noblest indifferently 
with the meanest and worst; upon those who are 
engaged in the highest and worthiest enterprises, and 
often as the direct consequence of the noblest acts ; 
and it might almost be imagined as a punishment for 
them.”’+ A more recent writer, whose views of life 
are by no means influenced by what has often been 
deemed, and perhaps not unfairly deemed, the pes- 
simism of theologians, has used very similar language. 
“Grinding misery,” says this eloquent writer, “is the 
lot of many, and regret and disappointment is the 
lot of all. The life of the wisest man is chiefly made 
up of lost opportunities, defeated hopes, half-finished 
prospects, and frequent failure in the ever-renewed. 
strife between evil and good.’’t 


* Ecclesiastes i. 2. 


+ Three Essays on Religion, p. 29. These three remarkable: 


essays, to which occasional reference is made in this lecture,. 

were written at very different periods of the author’s life. The. 

Essay on Nature, from which the quotation is taken, appears to 

have been written more than twenty years ago, but was to have 

been published in 1873. See the “ Introductory Notice,” py 1x. 
t Fiske, Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 403 sq. The 
; 245 


he 


THE ADEQUACY OF THE CHRISTIAN ANSWER 


If we accept this as a general description of the 
seeming moral frustration which we are now consider- 
ing, it may be fairly asked how such a moral chaos 
can adequately be accounted for. What answer caz 
we return to the varied forms of the general question 
as it is now presented to us? Surely no question 
could more seriously test any religion or system, as 
to the soul-satisfying nature of such a religion or 
system, than that which we have now before us. 

The answer of Christianity is, at any rate, perfectly 
distinct, and fully commensurate with the phenomena. 
And it is this: that all this strange frustration of 
moral purpose is due to the entrance of sin into the 
world, and to its abiding presence there; or, to state 
the answer still more precisely—that all is due, in the | 
first place, to man’s having been led by the temptation 
of an alien and extraneous Evil Will* to choose the ~ 
above work, from which the extract is taken, and to which 
reference has been already made in these notes, is a careful, 
elaborate, and, it must also in fairness be said, an interesting 
work, The writer is avowedly a follower of the teaching of Mr. 
Herbert Spencer; but there are many indications of a reaction 
towards more distinct views in reference to God. The Universe 


is regarded as the manifestation of the Deity; but Deity is 
regarded as something more than the Universe. See vol. ii. 
p. 404. 

* It is with deep truth that Martensen thus writes in reference 
to the teaching of Scripture on this dark and difficult subject : 
“ However often we are content with such expressions as ‘the 
power of evil,’ ‘the evil principle,’ ‘the impure spirit-world,’ in 
our expositions of Scripture, yet the more profound consideration 
of Scripture, of life, and above all of the stern conflict against 

246 


TO ALL DEEPER QUESTIONS. 


latter of two moral possibilities——zot spontaneous 

surrender of his will to the will of Him who called 

him into being, but self-seeking aversion from it; and 

in the second place to the accumulated energies of 
that aversion as propagated in the race and put forth 
by each individual of it. The falsely-free turning aside 
from the will of the Creator converted the posse mort, 

with which man was originally created, into an actu- 

ality. Death became man’s heritage and destiny, and, 

in the form of pain, misery, and final disintegration of 
the body, diffused itself through the race, and flung 

even some shadows on the realm of nature.* “By one 

man sin entered into the world, and by sin death.” 


evil, will ever lead back our thoughts to the doctrine of an EVIL 

WILL.” Christian Dogmatics, § 106, p. 201 (Transl.); see also a 
good paper on this subject, and especially on the “ Satanology ” 
of Schelling, in the Bewezs des Glaubens for 1873, p. 156. The 
popular statement is that the Old Testament idea of Satan is 
mainly of Persian origin (see Roskoff, Geschichte des Teufels, 
vol. i. p. 193, Leipz. 1869), and that the New Testament con- 
ceptions were derived from it. This view, however, in reference 
to the Old Testament, is justly doubted by thoroughly unbiassed 
inquirers. See Spiegel, Axische Studien, p. 65, Leipz. 1874. 

_ * As Von Baader has somewhere said, “The fall of man was 
a cosmic event, as when a kingdom falls with its king.” It may 
not be easy to prove this in detail ; but both Scripture (Gen. iii. 
17; Rom. viii. 20 sq.) and experience seem to recognise it as 
one of those mysterious truths which in this state of things we 
must often feel, but which, from our ignorance of the state of_ 
man and of nature prior to the Fall, we may never be able to 
substantiate. See the sensible comments of Plitt, Evangelische 
Glaubenslehre, vol. i. p. 267 sq. 

+ Rom, v. 12. On the meaning of @dvaros in this passage 


247 


THE ADEQUACY OF THE CHRISTIAN ANSWER 


What we assert then is, that there was the historic 
event called the Fall*—that it was brought about 
by an Evil Will,—and that to the effects of that Fall; 
and to the mysteriously still permitted and still con- 
tinuing agency of that Evil Will, all the moral ruin of 
the world must certainly be attributed.+ 


(not spiritual, but physical, death), see Meyer zz Zac. ; so all the 
earlier Greek interpreters. On the varying degrees of inclusive- 
ness of meaning involved in the word, see Philippi, Kirchliche 
Glaubenslehre, vol. iii. p. 378 sq., ed. 2, Stuttg. 1867. 

* It is not easy to understand the grounds on which writers 


such as Mr. Murphy (Scéentzfic Bases of Belief, p. 270; comp. — 


Rothe, Dogmatik, § 84, part i. p. 302 sq.) appear to doubt the 
definitely historical character of the Fall. That there may be 
symbolism in the narrative may be conceded (comp. Martensen, 
Dogmatics, § 79), but that there was a distinct act in which and 
by which, through the craft of a mysterious Deceiver (Oosterzee), 


our first parents manifested a sinful determination of the will, is - 


most certainly the teaching of Holy Scripture. As Martensen 
has rightly said (§ 47), if we exclude the supposition of a fall, 
the only alternative is, either to deny sin as a universal phe- 
nomenon, or to recognise it as an inherent element in the idea 
of the world. eer 

+ The questions of course remain, Whence nevertheless is 
moral evil?) Why does God permit it? And to such questions 


no answer can be given except that which is commonly given— | 


That without its emergence and subsequent existence had been 
permitted, the human freedom, willed and conferred by God 
Himself, would have been annihilated, or rather, could not have 
become that which God willed it to be. See Van Oosterzee, 
Christian Dogmatics, § 62,p. 342 (Transl.). The remark of 
Martensen, in reference to these profoundly difficult questions, 
will be found very helpful: “In its: essence Omnipotence is 
a moral and self-limiting power.” Dogmatics, § 115, p. 216 
(Transl.). | 
248 


ca TO ALL DEEPER QUESTIONS. 


This is the answer of Christianity,—an answer that 
the most determined opponent. must admit to be 
perfectly thinkable, perfectly intelligible, and also 
fully explanatory of the broad phenomena of life and : 


death, as they are practically presented to experience. 


Whether the answer, in itself, be considered right or 
wrong, no fair opponent could deny that it zs an 
answer, distinct and consistent, and that it includes, 
by way of just deduction and inference, solutions of . 
great. problems which, before Christianity came into 
the world, had either been hesitatingly approached, 
or left aside as hopelessly insoluble. For instance, 
the answer alone gives to earthly and phenomenal 
life its true meaning, and to death its real significance. 
It enables us to surmise, if even not to recognise, 
what man’s life on earth really would have been if 
the disturbing and: self-seeking egoism of the will 
had not changed man’s true theocentric attitude, dis- 
torted all the fair lines of his formation and being, 
and marred that image of God which all deeper 
observers can still trace in that ideal physiognomy,* 
as it has been termed, of our fallen but still noble 


* All deeper observers have recognised this handwriting of 
God, as it has been termed, in the human face. One of our 
greatest living painters owes probably his great and deserved 
reputation to his power of seeing and depicting these nobler 
lineaments. The way in which this ideal physiognomy occa- 
sionally discloses itself in the faces of the dying has been 
often noticed. See Martensen, Christian Ethics, § 23, p. 86 
(Transl.). 


249 


THE ADEQUACY OF THE CHRISTIAN ANSWER 
Se a a ses Et aie a ae 


humanity. Life, which would otherwise have been 
only a period of development, and, it may be, of 
gradual transition to higher and higher stages of 
being, became at once invested with probationary 
aspects; limited, as far as the union of the soul and 
the earthly body is concerned, to a brief space of 
allotted time,—and yet time of such infinite moment 
that it is on the use or misuse of this time that the 
issues of an eternal future irrevocably depend. Death, — 
again, which to unfallen man was simply a possibility, 
and which, it has been thought, would have been 
continuously obviated by the workings of now impeded 
powers, and by laws of a natural immortality,* was 
changed into an actuality and a punishment. Sin - 
stopped the possible agency of the reparative process, 
and man, after a brief and transitory period of earthly 
existence, shares the lot of the animals around him, 
and realizes that which was to them an attendant 
condition of existence, but to man simply a possibility, 
—a possibility, and nothing more. 

Such is the light which the Christian answer throws 
on the mysteries of life and death, and on some of 


* On this subject see the interesting and very remarkable 
treatise of Bp. Bull, Ox the State of Man before the Fall 
(Works, vol. ii. p. 52, Oxf. 1827). The general views of the 
treatise have been maintained by most of the deeper writers on 
Christian doctrine of the present time. See Philippi, A7zrchiiche 
Glaubenslehre, vol. ii. p. 382 sq., ed. 2, Stuttgart 1867; Van 
Oosterzee, Christian Dogmatics, § 70, p. 678 (Transl.) ; comp. 
Sartorius, Die Lehre von der Heiligen Liebe, vol. i. p. 32 sq. 

| 250 


TO ALL DEEPER QUESTIONS. 


the deeper problems of existence. That it enables 
us to solve all the sad and strange enigmas of indi- 
vidual life——that we can confidently apply it to the 


details of every case of personal suffering, or that by | | 


means of it we can pretend to explain all the veiled 
dispensations which so often try the faith even of the 
unwavering,*—is far more than is here either asserted 
or implied. But it does enable us to trace the true 
and leading lines of the great moral purposes that 
are working out their issues in and through that 
apparent moral frustration and those ruins of earthly 
happiness which at times seem so strange and in- 
explicable. The Christian answer, at any rate, leads 
us to recognise two united truths: viz., that while, on 
the one hand, owing to the entrance and to the 
spread of sin, we can almost take the language of 
such pessimists as Schopenhauer,t and pronounce the 


*Some of these are noticed by Van Oosterzee, Christian 
Dogmatics, § 63, p. 349 (Transl.), and briefly explained. For us, 
- however, who can hardly read the secrets of our own hearts, 
~ and cannot even guess at the real moral state of those around 
us, it is fruitless as well as presumptuous to attempt to solve 
problems without that preliminary knowledge which must be 
the sce gud non of any attempt, however limited and rudiment- 
ary. “Repent” is the serious and monitory voice of all these 
veiled dispensations ; comp. Luke xiii. 5. 

+ See, for example, the sad passage cited from his Dze Welt 
als Wille und Vorstellung in the selections from his works 
(Lichtstrahlen, p. 188) by his devoted disciple Frauenstiadt. 
_ The view taken by his most recent follower, Hartmann, is ulti- 
mately the same. After a cheerless investigation (PAzlosophie 
des Unbewussten, Abschn. C, cap. xiii.) he comes to the conclu- 
251 


THE ADEQUACY OF THE €HRISTIAN ANSWER 
Sage iets er WEieeeabeaB Ee CAM nG at ache IPE tev! CMa UME ranean T ts Mk ih Go as 


whole course of z#zs world as essentially evil,—we are 
yet, on the other hand, constrained to admit that the © 
ultimate working and tendency is towards good. It is 
the most obvious teaching of experience that all evil, 
as it exists in the world, is so marvellously overruled 
by that mighty working whereby God subdueth all 
things unto Himself, that the very pain and death 
which> are the consequences of sin, become most 
potent agents in the development of the highest 
Christian virtues, and of a pity and love which 
Schopenhauer himself has declared to be the basis 
of all morality.* Evil existent and developing, but 
yet so overruled as by its very development to fur- 
ther the fuller emergence and higher manifestation 
of that which is good, is the real summary of the 
moral history of the world, and the broad statement 
which includes the true solution of the greater part 
of the baffling mysteries of mortal life. Still, as we 
have said, we cannot always apply this solution to all - 
the varied details of the moral phenomena around us. 


sion that “das Nichtsein der Welt ihrem Sein vorzuziehen 
ware.” P. 749, ed. 2, Berlin 1874. 

* Die beiden Grundprobleme der Ethik, p, 212, Frankfort 
1841. The first of the two essays, “Ueber die Freiheit des 
Menschlichen Willens,” secured a prize from the Norwegian 
Royal Society of Science. The second essay, “ Ueber das 
Fundament der Moral,” was sent in to the Danish Royal 
Society of Science, but was unsuccessful. A useful and popular 
sketch of this remarkable ‘but misanthropical writer has been 
recently published by Ribot, La Philosophie de Schopenhauer, 
Paris 1874. 


252 


TO. ALL DEEPER’ QUESTIONS: 


Still less can we attempt to read all the dark sayings 


of Nature, or to do more than anxiously point to 


those mysterious passages in Scripture, where it seems 
even more than hinted, that much of that ruthlessness 


in Nature, which a recent philosopher has set forth 
with such startling power, does really seem to stand 


‘in some causal connection with the self-determination 


of man.* Nay, more,—we seem even justified in 
believing that this very ruthlessness has become in- | 
tensified by the fall and dethronement of him who was 
called into being to be the masterpiece of his Creator’s 
works; and that he for whom all the kingdoms of 
nature had been prepared, and whole ages of sentient 
life had been patiently tarrying, had scarcely come 
into being ere he cast his shadow upon all things 


around him.} In all these things we can only see, as 


* “We will not,” says Bp. Martensen, “appeal only to the 
manifest tokens of moral evil which we so often meet with in 
nature; we merely refer to the sad truth that asserts itself in the 
darkness of the human soul, that whispers in the leaves of the 
forest, in the coiling of the serpent, that howls through the 
desert in the blood-thirstiness of the wild beasts. But we es- 


pecially appeal to the fact that there is manifest in nature an 


enigmatical contradiction of the inner and true teleology of 
nature—a contradiction of its own inner conformableness to the 
end designed.” Christian Dogmatics, § 112, p. 213 (Transl.). 
It is incontestably true that the indications of design point 
strongly in one direction,—preservation (Mill, Three Lssays, p. 


185) ; but it is also equally true that traces of a counter-working 


and counter-law have been recognised by all thoughtful ob- 
servers. 
T See above, p. 247, note. 


253 


THE ADEQUACY OF THE CHRISTIAN ANSWER 


through a glass, very darkly. Even with the general 
answer of Christianity in our minds, we can only give 
a very faltering explanation of many of the incidents 
which a single day of life’s experiences may bring 
suddenly before us. We may see clearly the broad 
principle; but we can rarely, if ever, trace all the subtle 
lines of providential workings or the sequences of 
_moral causation. We can never, for example, venture 
safely even to surmise, in any individual case, how 
much may be due, on the one hand, to punishment 
through the still-permitted agency of malefic power,* 
or, on the other hand, to what has been well called 
the moulding discipline of a fatherly chastisement. 
We can construct no true Theodicy on this side the 


* The numerous passages in the New Testament in which 
distinct agency of this kind is recognised can never be explained 
away by any sober interpreter. Not*only is it the Evil One that 
sows the bad seed (Matt. xii. 19, 39), but so mighty still is he 
in reference to its growth and development, that. an inspired 
apostle can speak of him as “the God of this world”: see 
John xii. 31, xiv. 30, Eph. 11.2; and comp. Nitzsch, System of 
Christian Doctrine, § 116, p. 236 (Transl.), Rothe, Dogmatzk, 
§ 59, parti. p. 247. Natural evil, considered with reference to 
the Divine government, is much less incomprehensible than 
moral evil,—nay, it may often be recognised as a powerful cor- 
rective of it: comp. Nitzsch, System of Christian Doctrine, 
§ 88, p. 198 (Transl.). A sinful world without pain and suffering 
would be worse than it is now. Of moral evil it may also 
be said, that it is “ordinabile,’ and that its course is ever so 
directed that even we, with our limited powers, can constantly 
observe how marvellously it is made to minister to good: comp. 
Plitt, Avangelische Glaubenslehre, vol. i. p. 199 sq. 


254 


TO ALL DEEFER QUESTIONS. 


grave: still we can derive from the answer of Chris- 
tianity, when combined with sober observation and 
calmly-analysed experience, these three considera- 
tions,— which, in any and every estimate of the moral — 
purpose of life and of the mystery of the dispensa- 
tions around us, will be found especially helpful, and 
will steady us and guide us amidst many moral 
perplexities.* 

The first consideration is this—that as Christianity 
seems distinctly to postulate the existence of a sinful 
history long before man appeared on the theatre 
of being, much in the order of nature that may now 
seem opposed to Divine beneficence may owe its 
existence, not to the frustrated power of that non- 
omnipotent Creator in which modern philosophy now 
invites us to believe, not to the essentially intractable 
nature of the element on which He is essaying to 
work, but to distinct counter-agencies of a kingdom 
of evil personalities,f permitted only to exist that the 


* On the difficulties connected with any attempt to form for 
ourselves a Theodicy, see the interesting comments in Van 
Oosterzee, Christian Dogmatics, § 63, pp. 346 sq., and the article 
by Ulrici in Herzog, Real-Encyclop., vol. xv. p. 707 sq. 

+ See Martensen, Dogmatics, § 105, p. 198 (Transl.), who justly 
remarks that “evil had a history before it received a history 
upon earth” (p. 199). The subject is carefully treated by Van 
Oosterzee (§ 67), who very rightly insists upon the extreme 
importance of the truth alluded to in the text. The power of 
sin is certainly more completely realizable under this conception 
of its origin,—and if it be quite true that the fundamental 
difficulty as to the existence of evil at all is only pushed a little 


255 


THE ADEQUACY OF THE CHRIST. TAN ANS WER 


final victory of good over evil might be more blessedly 
and more morally complete. Is there not the widest 
application to be given to that instructive declaration 
of the apostle* in which he tells us that it is “the 
weak things of the world” that God hath chosen “ to 
confound the things which are mighty; and ignoble 
things of the world,and things which are despised” 
that God hath chosen, “yea, and things that are not, 
to bring to nought the things that are”? 

The second consideration is this—that as the posse 
peccare was a necessary element in the moral consti- 
tution of the free beings whom a God of love created 
to reflect that love, so the whole system of this visible 
-world would seem to have been, from the very first, 
framed by the Divine Artificer so as to become self- 
adapted and self-adjusted-to the determination (be 
that determination what it might) of the morally free 
beings for whom it would appear to have been called 
into existence.t That she world might become ¢hzs 


further back, it is also true that several phenomena connected - 
with its existence and nature are more explicable on this hypo- 
thesis than on any other that has yet been: ane 

Ait Corea 2720. 

+ This position is maintained by Ebrard, Apologetih, §§ 129- 
132, p. 270 sq., on physical as well as logical grounds which 
deserve serious consideration. The writer endeavours to show 
that the present state of nature was distinctly foreseen and pro- 
vided for, that the present opposition between mind and matter 
was taken into view, and that the possibility of death becoming 
converted into an actuality was also provided for from the very 
first. As yet this general position has not been much insisted 

256 


LOL ALLY DEEPER: QUESTIONS, 


N 


world was prepared for ere the foundations of the 
world were laid. The possibility of sin and death was 
ever in the Divine contemplation ; it was recognised, 


we may presume to say, in the creation of all orders é 


_ of self-conscious beings, and in the primal constitution 
of that world which was to be the home and hearth of 
humanity.* 

The third consideration is of a more speculative 
nature; and it is this—that, at any rate, in the world 
as we find it, the course of God’s providential govern- 
ment and, if we may presume to say so, of His Divine 
purpose, is not simply and barely to confer on His 
creatures the greatest level amount of individual 


upon, or illustrated in details ; but it would seem to be one of 
considerable importance. 

* Whether this earth is the only home in the visible universe 
of beings morally constituted as we are, has often been eagerly 
debated. At first sight it would seem inconceivable that the 
’ Incarnation and Atonement could have reference only to such 
an atom as this earth is, when contrasted with the countless 
stars, suns, and systems around it; but, on consideration, it 
will be seen that the fact of this earth having been the theatre 


_ of these acts of Infinite Mercy does not preclude the Incar- 


nation and Atonement having the widest cosmical significance : 


comp. Eph. iii. 10, 11, and see above, p. 235, note. There 


appear to be some physical reasons for thinking that our planet 
occupies a very unique position, in reference to its general con- 
stitution, when compared with the other members of our system; 
and also that the same remark applies to our planetary system 
when compared with other systems around it. See Ebrard, 

Der Glaube an die Heil. Schrift und die Ergebnisse der Natur- 
_Jorschung, Konigsb. 1861, and the recapitulation of the argu- 
‘ments in his recent Apologetik, § 143, note 1, p. 307 sq. 

. 257 S 


THE ADEQUACY OF THE CHRISTIAN ANSWER 


happiness, but, by drawing forth the highest examples 
of virtue and holiness, to lead all men to salvation ; 
and “after that they have suffered awhile, to perfect, 
stablish, strengthen, and settle them.”* . . . Whether 
this was so from the very first, and whether, prior to 
the fail of man, the emergence of the highest conceiv- 
able types and examples was a part of the Divine 
purpose, we know not; but this at least we may say, 
with reverence and humility—that if there be “ thrones 
and dominions,” and similar traces of degrees in the - 
heavenly hierarchy, so it may have been designed, 
before man came into being, that in the case of that 
race which, according to the current belief in the early 
Church, was created to fill up the lapsed places in that 
heavenly hierarchy,{ there might be higher orders and 


* 1 Pet. v. 10. This view, which, it would seem, is of great 
importance in any estimates we may venture to make of the 
Divine purpose of creation, is briefly but clearly noticed by 
Fichte (J. H), Anthropologie, § 266, p. 600 sq., Leipz. 1860, 
Among more recent writers, Mr. Murphy has devoted a chapter 
in his last work to this Siphce and expresses the substance of it. 
in the following words : “If the purpose of creation is to pro- 
duce the highest possible average of human virtue, then creation - 
is a failure. But if it is not to produce the highest possible 
_ average of virtue, but to make possible the production of virtue 
of the highest type, then the purpose of creation has been 
attained. The highest conceivable type of character has once 
been realized in Christ ; and it has been aspired after with 
varying success, and attained in various degrees, by an unknown 
number of His followers.” Pie Bases of Faith, ch. xvii. 
p. 246, Lond. 1870. 

+ This opinion was apparently the current one on the subject 

258: 


TO ALL DEEPER QUESTIONS. 


varying degrees of spiritual development. And it 
thus, at least, is possible that, as has been surmised by 
recent writers, the purpose of creation may have been, 


not the production of the highest average of virtue, 


but of virtue of the highest type. If such a concep- 


tion be admissible, then some at least of the moral. 


perplexities in reference to the present constitution 
of things seem ultimately to disappear; some light 
seems to fall on dispensations which otherwise, on 
this side the grave, might be deemed to be utterly 
- hidden and inscrutable. | 

But, to pass onward, such is the answer of Chris- 
tianity to the deep and mysterious question now 
before us. And such, to some extent, is the answer 
that seems to have been permitted to dawn through 
some of the earlier religions of the world. Some 
traces there seem to be everywhere of a Fall; some 
recognitions of the one dread factor and element 
which all modern systems are tending to explain 
away or repudiate,—Sin *—sin, which even a pagan 


‘in the early ages of the Church. It was afterwards developed 
by Anselm, and passed from an opinion into something like a 
definite dogma. Out of many passages it may be enough to 
~ cite Augustine, De Czvitate Dez, xxii. 1 :“ Qui de mortali progenie 
merito justeque damnata tantum populum gratia sua colligit, ut 
inde suppleat, et instauret partem que lapsa est angelorum; ac 
sic illa dilecta et superna Civitas non fraudetur suorum numero 


-civium, quinetiam fortassis et uberiore latetur.” 


* Several passages in which deliverance from sin is prayed 
for, and connected with the somewhat doubtful personification 
or deity, Aditi, will be found in Muir, Sanskrit Texts, vol. v. 


259 


4 


THE ADEQUACY OF THE CHRISTIAN ANSWER 


philosopher could imagine as working out its dreadful 
issues in the soul ages after its first unexpiated mani- 
festations.* But in most modern systems we find no 
answer at all. We seek in vain for any inferences 
that might be supposed to cast any single ray of light 
on the dark problems and moral mysteries of human 
life. ‘Either it is plainly conceded that the present 


distribution of moral forces is purposeless and chaotic,ft 


and that all we can. do is patiently to wait, and to 
strive to modify by duty and self-devotion the sad 
world of frustration and suffering that is around us, or 
else we find ourselves led back to the twilight of 


p. 46 sq. The modern philosopher regards sin very differently,— 
as a “wilful violation of a law of nature, or a course of thought 
or action wilfully pursued which tends to throw the individual 


out of balance with his environment.” Fiske, Cosmic Philosophy, » 


vol. il. p. 455. 
* The passage referred to is in the Leges of Plato, and is so 


remarkable as to deserve citation. The subject is sacrilege, in 
reference to which the speaker says : *Q Oavpdote, odk avOpamwdy 
oe Kakov. ovde Oeiov Kiel Td viv emi Thy lepooudlay mporpéroy lévat, 
durrpos O€ wé Tis eupudpevos ek Tadaiwy kal dkabdprwy Tots avOparots 
aducnudrav, mepipepdpevos ddtnpiodns, bv evAaBeioOa' xpeoy travri 
cbéve. De Legg. ix. p. 854 B; comp. Phedr. p. 244 D. 

+ Mr. Fiske .candidly writes as follows : “ The perennial 
recurrence of war and persecution, the obstinate vitality of such 
ugly things as despotism, superstition, fraud, robbery, treachery, 
and bigotry, show how chaotic as yet ts the distribution of moral 
forces.” Cosmic Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 404; see p. 501. It is 
but little consolation to be told, a few lines afterwards, that this 
state of things is temporarily necessitated “by the physical 
constitution of the universe and by the processes of evolution 
itself.” 

260 


TO ALL DEEPER QUESTIONS. 


ancient dualism, bidden to console ourselves with the . 
thought that it is but with us as it is with the God 
who called us into being, and that the true history of 


all things is—power limited, purpose impeded, and ae 


will itself, even in its highest conceivable embodiment, 
forced to work through contrivance and design, and 
to bear enduring testimony to the might as well as to 
the mystery of matter.* 

Non-Christian philosophy has literally no answer. ° 
By its acceptance of a first Cause rather than of a 
loving Creator, and its insensibility to the moral 
_ importance of the individual, all true-conception of 
the disciplinary aspects of human life and of a love 
_ that purgeth each individual branch only that more 
moral fruit may be borne, utterly fade away. Evolu- 
tion knows nothing either of love or of repentance; 
of fall or of restoration.t Its only morality lies in its 


* It is ‘strange how cultivated non-Christian thought seems to 
be returning in substance to some at least of the principles of 
- early pagan philosophy. The view taken by Plato in the 77meus 
of a Creator “still subject to a remnant of necessity which he 
could not wholly overcome,’ and unable to get rid of the 
residual evil inherent in matter (see Jowett, Dialogues of Plato, 
vol. ii. p. 510 sq.) is now, in effect, after twenty-three centuries 
of speculation and thought, the only form of belief in the super- 
natural which a modern philosopher can pronounce to stand 
clear of intellectual contradiction and of moral obliquity : see 
Mill, Zhree Essays on keligion, p. 116. 

t+ On this point the language of modern non- Gate thought 
is especially distinct :—‘‘ Science,” says one of its recent ex- 
pounders, “knows of no such thing as reparation for sin:. 
Repentance. cannot ward off punishment.”» When we then 

201 


THE ADEQUACY OF THE CHRISTIAN ANSWER 


stern and untempered teaching of the inevitable per- 

manence of consequences; but this teaching, salutary 
as it is when associated with the definitely Christian 
doctrines of redemption and repentance,” in itself is 
nothing more than a simple statement of observed 
facts, monitory and deterrent, but absolutely inade- 
quate to account for the perplexing phenomena of 
life, or to cast one ray on those dark moral mysteries 
on which no light has ever rested save that which has 
been shed by ‘Christianity. 

III. But if this be a true statement in reference to — 
the general mystery of human life, still more shall. 
we find it to be so when we pass to the more special 
and personal question, that question which is of such 
infinite moment to each one of us,—What is the moral 
purpose of my being? For what was I born into this 
world of apparently fruitlessness and frustration ? 
Why am I here? What is the end and object of my 
existence, and the moral reason of my having been 


naturally ask, What zs Sin ? the answer is supplied to us by the 
same writer : “Sin is a wilful violation of a law of nature, or— 
to speak in terms of evolution—it is a course of thought or 
action, wilfully pursued, which tends to throw the individual out 
of balance with his environment, and thus to detract from his 
physical or moral completeness of life.” Fiske, Cosmzc Phtlosophy, 
vol. ii. p. 455. 

* On the permanence of the consequence of sin, see Murphy, 
_ Sctentific Bases of Belief, ch. xxii. p. 308. ° “ Every action,” says 
this writer, “having any moyal character, will leave its trace on 
the destiny and the nature of the doer while he continues to 
exist.” P. 309. ; 

262 


LO ALL DEFPER OCESTIONS. 


formed into a living soul? The direct answer to this” 
difficult question, as supplied by Christianity, is by no 
means easy to formulate; nay, it is probable that 
different answers may be given by Christian thinkers, 
and varying just in proportion as the principle of love 
or of duty is the predominant element in a character.* 
Still it would seem that all may be included in the. 
one comprehensive answer,—the answer of Him who 
came into the world to give that answer its fullest 
manifestation,—/o do the will of God, and that not 
from any consideration of the recompense of reward, 
but simply from love of Him who so loved us, that 
He gave His Son to die for us, and by that death to 
be the Reconciler, Redeemer, and Restorer of the 
individual and of the race. 

If we accept this as the fundamental answer of 
Christianity in reference to man’s highest purpose 
upon earth, it becomes comparatively easy to draw 
the true contrast between this answer and the highest 


* The question of man’s original destination is considered by 
Van Oosterzee (Christian Dogmatics, § 68, p. 369 sq., Transl.), 
but mainly in the connexion in which it stands to the doctrine 
of immortality. This most practical, though confessedly most 
difficult question has not by any means received the attention 
it deserves. The true scriptural basis for all deeper thought on 
this subject must be sought for in the teaching of St. John. 
The Apostle sets before us the essentials of life in Christ, and’ 
so supplies us with the most suggestive indications of what 
should be life’s real purposes: comp. I John ii. 5, 14 sq., iii. 
23, al. The subject is touched-upon, but not by any means 
satisfactorily, in Rothe, Dogmadtzk, $ 66 sq., part i, p. 269 sq. 

264 


THE ADEQUACY OF THE CHRISTIAN ANSWER 


answer that has ever yet been returned whether by 
religion or philosophy. The essential difference 
between the Christian answer and any or every other 
answer is to be sought for in the motive.* Man’s 
purpose on earth is not simply to do the will of 
God, but to do that will for love of God. Love is 
the motive principle of the Gospel; and it is the 
presence of this as the motive principle of obedi- 
ence to God that sharply differentiates Christianity 
from every other system which the world has ever 
known. | 

If we turn to the ancient religions of the world, 
we always find that the real motive principle is either 
fear or self-interest, and that the moral purpose of 


* This will be seen at once if we take one of the more recent | 
statements of man’s duty. “It is manifestly our first duty, as 
it should be our supremest pleasure, to apprehend as clearly as 
we may the laws by which the Supreme Being governs the 
universe, and to bring ourselves and our actions into reverent 
harmony with them, conforming ourselves to their teaching, and 
learning wisdom from their decrees.” Supernatural Religion, 
vol. 11. p. 492. Here all real motive seems absent. Duty is 
set forth, but not that which gives life to it. 

+ The commonly recéived view—Primus in orbe Deus fecit 
Zimor—has of late been called into question. Hegel speaks of 
early religion as “the prostration of the mind under the deified 
powers of nature”; Mill and others regard it as due to “ the 
spontaneous tendency to attribute life and volition to natural 
objects and phenomena, which appear to be self-moving.” 
This may be so; but behind all this, hopes and fears, and 
especially the latter, seem always to have been the true moving 
influences : compare Schopenhauer, Parerga u. Paralipomena, 
vol. i. p. 112; Berl. 1851 ; and on the whole subject, the full and 

264 


TO ALL DEEPER QUESTIONS: » 


life, if ever hinted at, is defined accordingly. Fear is 
the latent principle of the earliest known forms of 
the heathen religions of our race. Even where some 
sense of sin, and some desire to be freed from its 
liability, appears to have been felt by the worshipper, 
—as for example in a few of the nobler hymns of the 
earliest Veda,* or in some of the more elevated pas- 
sages of the Zend-Avesta,t—there is ever some back- 
ground of apprehension, some desire to conciliate the 
powerful Being to: whom: the prayer is addressed, lest 
neglect should bring down his anger and chastisement. 
Even in the nobler and apparently less selfish system 
of Buddhism there is really no higher principle than 
self-interest. The substance of the Four Truths is 
escape from existence, only because existence itself is 

miserable.t The self-denying path that leads to 


suggestive comments of Voigt, Ge Se Me A? Ge 5 
p. 84 sq., Gotha 1874. 

* See above, p. 230, note, and compare Max Miller, Chzps 
Jrom a German Workshop, voli. p. 41 sq. 

+ The prevailing prayer in the Zend-Avesta would seem to be 
for purity. “ Reinheit ist dem Menschen nach der Geburt das 
Beste” (Yagna xlvii. 5, Spiegel) is a sentiment which seems to 
enter into all the higher prayers. This in itself involves con- 
sciousness of the contrary. Special penitential forms in which sin 
is fully acknowledged are also found. See Khorda-Avesta xlv.. 
(vol..1i1. p. 207, Spiegel), and Spiegel’s comments, vol, ii. p. lix. 

{The Four Truths are thus stated by Burnouf, on the 
authority of a fragmentary life of the Founder :-—“ L’exist- 
ence de I’état de misére est la premiére vérité ; la seconde est 
que cette misere immense repand son empire partout ; la deliv- 
rance finale de cette misére est la troisiéme ; enfin la quatriéme 

265 


THE ADEQUACY OF THE CHRISTIAN ANSWER 


Nirvana is trodden only because Nirvana affords - 


the only certain escape from a misery which is felt 
to be more intolerable than extinction.* 

So also if we turn to non-Christian systems of 
‘ philosophy, be they the most elevated that have yet 
been propounded, we find still the same insufficiency 
in the true motive principles. We never find the 
- purpose of life rising higher than duty,—duty whether 
as due to that humanity which a positive philosophy 
has now converted into its Deity, or as due to that 
unknown first cause which modern Pantheism is now 
beginning to acknowledge as its God,t—duty, but 


est existence des obstacles infinis qui s’opposent a cette deliv- 
rance.” Le Lotus de la Bonne Loi, p. 517, Paris 1852: See 
Koeppen, Dze Religion des Buddha, vol. i. p. 220 sq., Berlin 


1867 ; and compare Schlaginweit; Buddhism in Tibet, p..16 — 


- (Lond. and Leipz. 1863). 

* On the meaning of the word Nirvana (“blowing out, 
extinction of light”) see the letter of Max Miiller, Chis from a 
German Workshop, vol. 1. p. 279 sq. 

+ Even in systems as hopeless as that of Hartmann there 
seem to be clear indications of a feeling after a First Cause 
who exists, consciously or (according to this writer) uncon- 
sciously, behind all phenomena, and of whom they are the 
evolution. See the sad but still interesting chapter “ Das 
Unbewusste und der Gott des Theismus,” in the Philosophie 
des Unbewussten, pp. 535—561, Berl. 1874. This sort of half: 
‘pantheism, according to which creation becomes a sort of neces- 
sary evolution of the Deity, as it has been called, has been 
referred mainly to the last form of Schelling’s religious 
philosophy, and has been traced in some of the teaching of 


Schleiermacher. In such a system causality seems to have taken - 


the place of purpose, and an all-working power that of an 
266 


TO ALL DEEPER QUESTIONS. 


not either devotion or love. Even in that which may 
perhaps be deemed the highest non-Christian estimate 
of life’s truest purpose, the view sketched out in the 
second of Mr. Mill’s posthumous treatises on Religion, 
—even in that estimate in which the non-Christian 
philosopher seems almost willing to adopt the very 
language of an inspired Apostle,* and inferentially to 
encourage man to be “a fellow-labourer with the 
Highest,;’—even here, no true idea of love of that 
Highest can be properly said in any degree to hold 
a place. Weare to help in the great strife; but the- 
Being whom we are to aid, though possibly ultimately 
destined to triumph, is but contriving Goodness foiled 
by the element around it,—a Being whom it may be 
possible to sympathize with, but to whom love in its 


- highest and holiest sense could never be offered. The 


_ Christian’s ideal of love towards God,—love based not 
only on the ever-present remembrance of His redeem- 
ing mercy, but on the adoring recognition of infinite 
_excellences and exhaustless perfections,+—could never 


omnipotent will. See Ebrard, Apologetik, § 94, p. 195 sq. ; com- 
pare Rothe, Dogmatik, § 37, part i. p. 135 sq. 

* See 1 Cor. iii. 9. In the passage referred to, Mr. Mill does 
not definitely accept the view as a substitute for the religion of 
humanity, but regards it as one that may be held in conjunction 
with it. Zhree Essays on Religion, p. 117. 

+ Though we may probably admit, with Martensen (Christian 
Ethics, § 106, p. 320, Transl.), that worship ofthe depths of 
God’s love in Christ, and gratitude in its purest conceivable- 
form, supply the deepest motive, still we must certainly not 
fail, with the same writer, to recognise, as co-existent with this, 
| 267 


THE ADEQUACY OF THE CHRISTIAN ANSWER 


be realized in the case we are now considering: the 
_ purest glow of sublimated earthly affection might 
animate our co-operation, but it would never rise to 
that love to God which is felt by the Christian fellow- 
labourer with a Father and a God, that love of which 
an Apostle has given us one most blessed and most 
mystic criterion—viz., that dwelling in that love is 
“dwelling in God, and Godin us.”* The heart craves 
for the infinite, and could never give its highest offering 
to limited Wisdom, and well-wishing but overmatched 
Beneficence. 3 
If these remarks are true in reference to what is 
confessedly a higher system, or, at any rate, a system 
that has some views partially coincident with those 
of Christianity, still more will they be found true 


when we turn to other-and lower systems of non- 


Christian philosophy. In some of these systems 


and included in it, that adoring love which loves God for His 
own sake. It may be true that this last form of love was exag- 
gerated by Fénélon—still no sensitive Christian can deny, to use 
the language of Martensen, “that there are moments in which 
gratitude and regard to our own felicity do not appear as such, 
but as though melted and absorbed in the universal element of 


adoration.” J/did. p. 322: compare Plitt, Kvang. Glaubenstehre, 


§ 60, vol. ii, p. 142 sq. ; and generally, on the Christian con- 
ception of the love of God, Bp. Butler, Sermons, xiii., xiv. 

* 1 John iv. 16. See the comments on this expression in the 
excellent and suggestive commentary on this epistle by Haupt, 
p. 202 sq. There are few recent expository treatises on separate 
portions of Holy Scripture which, for care and thoroughness 
of exegesis, deserve more warmly to be commended than the 
work just referred to. 

268 


= ee 
a, 


RLO ALLE DEEPER: OUESTIONS. 


‘either no answer of any kind is given to the vital 
question now before us, or, if given, is so formulated 
as practically to point only to a bleak self-abnega- 
tion* that at last loses itself in the old shadows of 
Nirvana, or in that non-existent existence in which 
early Chinese philosophy has sought for itself a God,+ 
_and which modern philosophy is now making its 
own. . .. What conception, for example, of life and 
life’s purpose could be more sad than that of the 
pessimistic philosophy of Hartmann? Life a_ series 
of illusions; first, as regards happiness in this world ; 
next, as regards all that might be hoped for in a 
world to come; and thirdly, as regards even that 
last and lingering paradise of modern philosophy, the 
future evolution of the universe:{ life thus a series 

*In his essay on the fundamental principles of Buddhism, 
Koeppen quotes a sentence from Schopenhauer as fairly ex- 
pressing its tenets in a revived form. Dze Religion des 
Buddha, vol. i. p.~213, Berl. 1857; 

t See the short but interesting sketch of the system of Lao 
Tse in Ampere, Za Sczence et Les Lettres en Orient, p. 435. 
The work (Zao-te-king, or “Le Livre de la Voie et de la 
Vertue”) of this really remarkable philosopher on which the 
system of so-called Taoism is founded, has been translated in 
French by Stanislas Julien, Paris 1842, and more recently by 
Chalmers (Lond. 1868), and by Von Strauss (Leipz. 1870), and 
_will certainly repay the trouble of reading. It is an instance of 
a philosophy out of which has emerged a religion which still 
exercises considerable influence among the more cultivated 
Chinese thinkers. See the excellent introduction of Stan. Julien 
prefixed to his translation. : 

~ See Hartmann, Philosophie des Unbewussten, p. 728. The 
practical results of this most joyless system will be found in 

269 


THE ADEQUACY OF THE CHRISTIAN ANSWER 


of illusions, and life’s highest purpose the conversion 
of all willing into non-willing, and of all nobler effort 
into joyless co-operation with the dark movements 
of an unconscious Intelligence. 

And this is the practical purpose of life er the 
last modern philosophy would teach us is to take the 
place of life’s purpose as indicated by Christianity. 
This is the dreary voice of the future which is to 
silence the blessed and inspiriting call to be Christ's 
faithful soldier and servant unto the end,—the call 
to co-operate with Him, aye, and to overcome with 
Him, and having overcome with Him to abide with 
Him for ever,and in His adorable presence, to realize, | 
it may be in ever-increased and increasing measures,* 
the holy and eternal fulness of the kingdom prepared 
for us from the foundations of the world. Could con- 
trast be more startling? Could illustration be more 


ch. xiv. p. 762 sq., and in ch. xv. p..772 sq. The termination 
of all things and the goal towards which the “ Weltprocess ” 
is directed is defined by this writer as “die Aufhebung alles 
Wollens in’s absolute Nichtwollen, mit welchem bekanntlich 
alles sogenannte Dasein (Organisation, Materie, u.s.w.) ¢o0 
ipso verschwindet und aufhért.” P. 764. 

* That there will be progress in the blessed future is appa- 
rently the conception which has most commended itself to all - 
reverent and devout thinkers: “In that blessed kingdom there 
will be an endless progress, because there, in that land of 
perfection, there are new perennial springs, uncreated possi- 
bilities of new joy and new activity, new knowledge, and new 
love.” Martensen, Christian Dogmatics, § 290, p. 485 (Transl.). 
See Rothe, Dogmatik, § 45, part ill. p. 131. 

270 


TO ALL DEEPER QUESTIONS. 


complete of the superiority of the Christian answer, 
even if we take only the comparatively low ground of 
its supplying the best conceivable incentive to noble 
and disinterested action? - : 
IV. One further and most serious question yet 
remains, which, in a lecture like the present, on life’s 
deeper questions, we cannot leave wholly unnoticed. 
If our first question (Whence ?) led us to gaze back- 
ward into the unknown past, our last question must 
direct our thoughts to the veiled and almost equally 
impenetrable future. Whither? To what goal are 
all life's purposes directing us? Into what mysterious 
realms have all the nations and families of the earth 
_ already passed? Where now are the noble, the brave, 
the holy, and the faithful? Where are they who were 
permitted to realize in many things life’s highest 
purposes? and where are they by whom those pur- 
poses were left unfulfilled, or to whom they were 
unrevealed and unknown ? : 
_ To this most vital and personal of all human ques-_ 
tions what answer can religion or philosophy return ? 
What, first, is the answer of Christianity ? Again, 
as in former answers, distinct, comprehensive, and, as 
a true answer must be and ought to be, reactive upon 
the whole course and development of earthly life. In 
substance we know the answer well; yet, as no other 
of the answers to life’s questions have been more 
clogged with what is opinionable or addititious, let us 
“state it in all the breadth and simplicity of Scriptural 
271 


THE ADEQUACY OF THE CHRISTIAN ANSWER 


truth. If the anxious heart asks, Whither? the answer 
of Revealed Religion is broadly and substantially 
this—To a realm of waiting and interspace; and 
thence, after the reunion of the soul with an incor- 
ruptible, and perhaps morally conformable body,* to 
abodes either of eternal joy or of eternal woe, accord- 
ing to the judgment which He who is both God and 
man will pass, when this zon closes, and the zons of 
eternity begin. 

This is the Christian answer ; differing on the one 
hand, from the answers of nearly all the early re- 
ligions and theistic philosophies of the past in the 
stress it lays upon the future reunion of soul and body,t 


* This is the opinion of Cudworth, /utellectual System, Book — 
I. chap. v. p. 792, Lond. 1678. It need, however, hardly be 
said that here all is conjectural. It does, however, seem to be 
the clear teaching of Scripture that there will be a resurrection 
of the body, in the case of the unjust as well as the just. See 
_ Acts xxiv. 15; and comp. 2 Cot. ¥.:10, and Dan, xti-2: 

+ It is certainly worthy of remark that some of the hymns of — 
the Rig-Veda appear distinctly to recognise the idea of a future 
union of the “ unborn part” with its ancient body in a glorified 
form. See Muir, Sanskrit Texts, vol. v. p. 303, sq. The 
following are the words of one of these ancient hymns: “Let | 
his eye go to the sun, his breath to the wind. Go to the sky, 
and to the earth, according to (the) nature (of thy several parts) ; 
or go to the waters, if that is suitable for thee; enter into the 
plants with thy members. ... Give up again, Agni, to the 
Fathers, him who comes offered to thee with oblations. Putting 
on life, let him approach (his) remains ; let him meet with his 
body, O Fatavedas! Whatever part of thee any black bird, or 
ant, or serpent, or beast of prey has torn, may Agni restore to 
thee all that!” MRzg-Veda Sanhita, x. 16. 1 (Muir, p. 298 sq.). 

272 


TO AIL DEEPER QUESTIONS. 

LS a ee 
and on the permanence of existence under relations 
to some extent analogous to the experience of the 
past ;—differing thus from earlier systems, and, on 
the other hand, differing from all modern theistic 
philosophies, not only in what has been stated, but 
especially in this—the dread significance assigned to 
mortal life as conditioning the whole life of the future. 
And is it not in these very differences that we recog- 
nise the essential truth of this answer? Can we 
conceive to ourselves existence without some medium 
by which we receive impression from that which is 
not ourselves? Have not all philosophers, whether 
Pagan or. Christian, who have reasoned upon the 
unclothed state, felt themselves constrained to admit 
or to postulate some sort of quasi-corporeity of soul,* 
even before its final investiture with the body of the 
future? Again, if we are to exist, can we deem it 
possible that deeds done in an earlier stage of a 
continuous existence are to have no conditioning 
influence on the stages of it that may follow? If 

* Cudworth has collected several striking passages from 
early Christian writers, in which this very natural view has been 
distinctly maintained. See Jntellectual System, bk. I. ch. v. 
p- 799 sq. The same opinion would also seem to be the 
prevailing one among Christian thinkers at the present time. 
Comp. Van Oosterzee, Christian Dogmatics, § 143, p. 787 sq, 
(Transl.) ; Martensen, Christian Dogmatics, § 276, p. 460 sq. 
(Transl.). A full discussion of the subject, on its psychological 
side, will be found in Fichte (J. H.), Anthropologie, § 139, Sq., 
Pp. 327 sq., Leipz. 1860, and in the interesting tract of Splittgerber, 
Lod, fortleben, und Auferstehung, p. 66 sq., ed. 2, Halle 1869. 


py T 


THE ADEQUACY OF THE CHRISTIAN ANSWER 


all real knowledge, apart from revelation, is to be 
considered as limited to our own experiences, and to 
inferences drawn from our own being and existence, 
may we not appeal to that knowledge as really 
incompatible with any other than the Christian 
answer, unless indeed we agree to evade all answers, 
and tacitly accept for our future that half-veiled 
Nirvana towards which all modern philosophy seems 
ultimately to point ; or else consent to lose ourselves 
amid the shadows of that revived Pantheism which we 
are now told is soon to become the Christianity of the 
future ?* Can we set aside all the dread teaching of 
consequences?+ Can we persuade ourselves that we 
can sow, and yet that no reaping time will follow; 
that there is no moral continuity, and that what can 
be seen and recognised here in clearest tendency will 
not hereafter pass into definite moral realization? | 

* The judgment of Hartmann is that the Jewish-Christian 
view of the world must either wholly die out, or become pan- 
theistic. Phzlosophie des Unbewussten, ch. vii. p. 558. It has 
been said, somewhat similarly, by a modern writer of our own 
country, that.“ Our growing recognition of the oneness of the 
Universe, and we must add, of its infinity, compels us to identify 
Deity with that absolute existence which involves all in itself.” 
Picton, Mystery of Matter, p. 485. The true aspects of Pan- 
theism on its better, as well as on its worse, side are candidly 
stated by Christlieb, Zoderne Zwetfel, p. 202 sq., Bonn 1870. 

+ It has been justly said, “The consequences of sinful acts 
may long outlast repentance, and it is not certain that they will 


be altogether obliterated in any state of being whatever.” 


Murphy, Scéentijic Bases of Belief, ch. xxii. p. 308. See above, 
p. 262, note. . 


27.4 


LO-ALT- DEEPER QUESTIONS. 


Surely, for once, we may take the very words of a 
non-Christian philosopher, and accept Mr. Mill’s most 
true and most monitory statement that “such as we 
have been, or have made ourselves before the change, 
such we shall enter into the life hereafter.’’* 

Well we know that questions of dreadful import 
yet remain, and that difficulties which the noblest 
minds, from the days of Origen ¢ down to our own, 
have never been able to surmount, lie involved in the 
answer we have formulated. We know it: we know 
too that, in the mighty evolutions of God’s fatherly pur- 
poses, there may well be dispensations which, with our 


present knowledge, we can do no more than conceive 


as included and involved among the possibilities of a 
limitless future. We may hope,—nay, if we will, we 
_ may draw some fleeting argument from the present 

_ growing tendency so to hope; but if we only consent 
to abide by the teaching and experiences of life,— 
putting, for a moment, all that Scripture has revealed 
utterly out of sight,—we still must logically accept 
the darker side of the Christian answer as well as the 


brighter. If the sharpest of all the sorrows of this life 


is expressed in those two sad words “ too late,” what 
real ground have we for hoping that there will be no 


SJ 


“too late” in the unknown Whither, on which our 


* Mill, Three Essays on Religion, p. 271. 

+ For an exact and connected statement of the views of this 
. reat thinker on the subject here alluded to, see the excellent 
work of Redepenning, Ov7genes, part ii. p. 444 sq., Bonn 1846. 


275 


\ 


THE ADEQUACY OF THE CHRISTIAN ANSWER 


thoughts are at present resting?* If we permit 
ourselves to-hope that He who so loved us that He 
spared not His only Son will never resign to endless 
misery. or to endless night one living soul that His 
love has called into being,—yet let us never close 
our eyes to the plain fact that all the teaching sup- 
plied by life’s experiences, and by all we can observe 
of the permanence of moral consequences, points, 
sternly-and unmistakably, exactly in the contrary 
direction. Nay, who shall say that the deliberate 
and continued rejection of a love such as. that shown 
in the Redemption may not carry with it something 
that in its very nature belongs to the fixed and the 
irrevocable ? : 

But not further to dwell upon this particular aspect 
of the answer, and to return to the general contrast 
between the answer of Christianity and those given 


* For the expansion of this most serious thought, see 
Martensen, Christian Dogmaiics, § 286, p. 478 (Transl.). It is 
with justice that Van Oosterzee warns us “to distrust every 
mode of regarding the doctrine of Salvation which, in its 
foundation and tendency, fails to do justice to the seriousness 
of the conception of an everlasting Zo Late, and of the holiness 
of a grace which cannot indeed be exhausted, but can just as 
little be mocked.” Christian Dogmatics, § 149, p. 808 (Transl.). 
In very similar language, though he does not accept the ordinary 
theory of beings everlastingly condemned, Nitzsch also reminds 
us, that for those “who have resisted conversion, and remain > 
unconverted, there is in nowise any hope of conversion and 
sanctification in the other world.” System of Christean Doctrine, 
§ 219, p. 396 (Transl.). 

276 


LTO ALL DEEPER QUESTIONS. 


by other sys‘ems, can we point to any other form of 
answer that can, for one moment, be compared with 
the-answer of Christianity, as similarly satisfying the 
aspirations of the soul, or as equally coinciding with 
the moral teaching of experience? So far is this 
from being the case, that we may observe that in all 
modern systems either the question is left unanswered, 
as lying wholly beyond the realm of experience, or 
the answer given is such as to amount to little more 
than an admission of the possibility of an existence 
after death, or, at any rate (as we have already 
noticed),* of the liberty of entertaining such a hope 
without the risk of being deemed utterly irrational. 
In purely scientific systems, all that is conceded is 
that there exists no evidence against the immortality 
of the soul except such as is implied in the absence 
of any evidence in its favour. In theistic systems, 
apart from revelation, we find no argument of any 
real validity for endurance after death, except that 


* See above, p. 227, note. The remark of Mill appears to be 
just—that the argument for the immortality of the soul from its 
own nature and supposed attributes requires this first to be 
shown,—that the attributes in question are really not attributes 
of the body, but of a separate substance. Deep as is apparently 
the inward persuasion of probably the greater part of mankind 
that the soul is separable from and survives the body, it yet may 
be conceded that of the current (non-Scriptural) arguments in 
favour of it, hardly any seem to carry with them real conviction. 
These arguments are briefly, but clearly, stated in Rothe, Dag- 
matik, part ill. § 124, p. 293. ; 
. 277 


THE ADEQUACY OF THE CHRISTIAN ANSWER 


which is founded on the Creator’s-tove ;* and even this 
is only admitted to be valid in the case of a world so 
constituted that we could infer from its constitution 
that its Creator was not only loving but omnipotent.f 

Answers thus limited and conditional can surely 
never satisfy any really loving and searching heart. 
Nay, it is simply inconceivable that such mere absence 
of negation could fora moment be tolerated as any ~ 
form of answer to the question before us, if there were 
not, deep in the souls of those who profess to be satis- 
fied with such an answer, a supplemental persuasion, 


-_ founded on the traditions of the race,t or on some 


ineradicable feeling which philosophy cannot account 
for, that there is a Whither, and that that Whither 
has been prepared for us by a just and beneficent 
God. 


* Ebrard is quite right in pointing to this as the firmest and 
surest ground for a belief in existence after death. See his 
Ahpologetik, § 102, p. 211, Giitersloh 1874. The second part of 
this useful work has just appeared, and (with the first part) may 
be justly characterized as one of the most important of recent 
treatises in vindication of the truth of Christianity. The ex- 
amination of the different opposing systems is impartial, 
and apparently founded on a careful study of their general 
characteristics. 

+See Mill, Three Essays on Religion, p. 209. 

*“The result,” says Prof. Jowett, “seems to be that those 
who have thought most deeply on the immortality of the soul, 
have been content to rest their belief on the agreement of the 
more enlightened part of mankind, and on the inseparable con- — 
nection of such a doctrine with the existence of God.” Dzalogues 
of Plato, vol. i. p. 391. ; 

m 278 


5 


TO} ALE, DEEPER: OUESTIONS. 


Of all the deeper questions relating to human life, 
this is the one in which appeal may be most persua- 
sively made to “the testimony of the Soul.”* The 
answer of Christianity may have its shadows, and to 
some minds may not seem free from all concomitant 
difficulties; but if ever answer were vouched for by 
every deeper feeling of the human heart, and con- 
firmed by every conviction that could influence life 
and stand the strain of approaching death, it is the 
answer we have given: the answer, not only of Chris-_ 
tianity, but of every truer tradition of the race ;f the 
answer that, in substance at least, can appeal to a 
testimony which no race or age has withheld from it— 
the testimonium anime naturaliter Christiane. 

Such is the last of the four great answers which — 
Christianity has given to the deeper questions relating 
to the mystery of human life: such the grounds on 


* See the striking chapter (cap. iv.) in the short but very 
remarkable treatise of Tertullian, De Testzmonio Anima, vol. i. 
-p. 613 sq. (ed. Migne). 

+ The numerous references in the earlier books of the Rig- 
‘Veda to the doctrine of a future life will be found in Muir, 
wanskrit 1 ¢xts,. vole. v. p."284,.8q. 3° see above, ‘p. 272, ‘note: 
According.to Spiegel (Avesta, vol. i. p. 15 sq.) the doctrine of 
the resurrection of the dead:was not cléarly set forth in the 
earlier parts of the Zend-Avesta. It is admitted, however, that 
there are traces of it even in the earlier parts (vol. ili. p. Ixxv.) ; 
and in later portions it is set forth distinctly; see, for example, 
Khorda-A vesta, xxxv. 89 (vol. ili. p. 184). 

ft Tertullian, Afpologeticus, cap. xvii. vol. i. p. 377 (ed. 
Migne). 

279 


THE ADEQUACY OF THE CHRISTIAN ANSWER 


which we now seem justified in asserting that, in 

reference to all life's deeper questions, Christianity 
does supply answers more satisfying and more in- 
wardly convincing than those of any other religion or 
philosophy which the world has ever known. 


The difficult subject I have attempted to bring 
before you is now brought to its close. My lecture, 
though studiously compressed, has, I fear, considerably 
exceeded the limits usually prescribed to essays such 
as the present. Still I cannot but feel how utterly 
inadequate is all that has been said, when contrasted 
with the profound nature of the subjects on which we 
have been. presuming to dwell. No doubt the task 
has been a hard one. To deal in one passing lecture 
with subjects which for ages have exercised the 
keenest thoughts, and awakened the deepest anxieties 
of the human heart; to take in one cursory view the 
varied solutions that have been offered -in -ancient 
philosophies or half formulated in early religions; to 
catch the true aspect of the protean forms of changing 
thought on topics where hopes and feelings often take 
the place of logic and reason ; to analyse the fleeting 
elements of modern non-Christian answers, and fairly 
to give the results of elaborate systems which were 
never constructed to bear such homely tests as here 
have been applied to them ;—all this may well be 
beyond the powers of ordinary thinkers; and it may 


be only natural to feel dissatisfied with an inadequacy 
280 


TO ALL DEEPER QUESTIONS. 


which, however, may carry with it, in some measure, 
its own passing excuse. 

But, be that as it may, I do humbly pray to God 
that these thoughts may do some little good to 
two classes of thinkers, for both of whom I feel 
profound sympathy. First, to those who keenly feel 
all the difficulties that seem involved in the answers 
which a current and conventional interpretation of 
Scripture has supplied to them,—who feel the con- 
tradictions in their system, and strive heartily to be- 
lieve in spite of them, and to hope where reason and 
belief seem utterly at issue. Secondly, to those who 
feel all these things so keenly that they have, in a 
kind of despair, cast off all the loving bonds that 
once united them to the Christian faith, and: are now 
pursuing their darkening path through the mysteries 
of life, with a hope that seems dying out with each 
step of their cheerless wandering. 

To thinkers of both these classes I trust I may 
have done some good. To the one class it is my 
hope that I may have indirectly shown that the true 
answers of Scripture on these fundamental questions 
are broad and clear,—widely different, indeed, from 
the narrow answers that in all ages,.and in our own 
no less than in those preceding it, have usurped the 
place of the free and simple answers of the Book of 
Life.* To the other class it is my humble prayer 

* Bp. Jeremy Taylor has not hesitated to speak on this 
subject very distinctly in his Lzderty of Prophesying ; see sect. 

281 


THE ADEQUACY OF THE CHRISTIAN ANSWER 


that I have made it plain that in Christ and in His 
Gospel are alone to be found those answers of life 
which they may have ceased to search for, because 
faith has gone and love has all but followed it. 
There are thousands of cultivated men and women 
who are now in this melancholy interspace between 
living faith and withering doubt; who are sadly and 
silently giving themselves over to a cheerless resigna- 
tion, and who have formed the resolution to search 
no more into the inscrutable, and to leave. to the 
adjustments or self-solutions of the future what has 
now become to them only the baffling and insoluble. 
All such have lost, consciously or unconsciously, 
two sensibilities. They have ceased to feel what sin, 
is ; and they have given up all real and vital belief in 
a Redeemer. Jesus Christ, their only and personal 
Saviour, has faded into a mere loving human Teacher ; 
or if some faith yet lingers, into little more than the 
possible Sosiosh of an old pagan creed.* Conviction 


8, 10, al. In the Epistle Dedicatory to this remarkable treatise 
he states it as his opinion “ that there are but few doctrines of 
Christianity that were ordered to be preached to all the world, 
“to every person, and made a necessary article of his explicit 
belief.” . Works, vol. vii. p. 407 (ed. Heber). 

-* The hope in a future Helper who is to appear at the end of 
all things, and to establish a kingdom of joy and blessedness, 
finds expression in several passages in the Zend-Avesta: see 
Vendidad, Fargard xix. 18, and the note of Spiegel zx Joc. 
(vol. i. p..244); comp. Yu¢ua xxvi. 33, lviil. 3. In the Khorda- 
Avesta (or smaller Avesta,—designed mainly for private devo- 
tion), we find two very explicit notices : xxix. 129 (Spiegel, vol. 

282. 


aad 


TO ALE DEEPER QUESTIONS. 


of sin, and longing for redemption,—these are the 
two holy threads through the labyrinth of life,* and 
are themselves the substance and essence of every 
answer on which we have been meditating. These 
they have lost. ....If these poor words of mine 
may be permitted to help them in any degree again 
to receive the blessed guiding of those golden threads, 
these words will’ not have been spoken entirely in 
vain. 
lil. p. 135), xxxv. 89 (vol. iii. p. 183). On the name (the Helper) 
and its etymology, see Spiegel’s Introduction to vol. iii., p. Ixxv. 
* “Via foi Chrétienne ne va principalement qu’a établir ces 


deux choses: la corruption de la nature et la rédemption de 
Jésus Christ.” Pascal, Pezsées, p. 10 (155), ed. Faugere. 


THE END. 


Hazell, Watson, and Viney, Printers, London and Aylesbury. 


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